Ye Mystic Revellers 1939 — illustrated program cover
Book 2, Page 173 ·1939
Transcription
A color-printed program or souvenir cover, mounted singly on the album page, for the 1939 ball of the Jacksonville carnival society “Ye Mystic Revellers.”
The illustration shows a robed figure in a striped tunic — orange, magenta, blue, and green stripes — wearing a feathered headband and bead earrings, standing barefoot in sandals on a sandy ground. The figure’s right arm is raised in greeting; the left holds a long staff or spear. A palmetto in green and a yucca-like plant rise behind at the left, and a tied bundle of logs (an unlit bonfire) sits at the right with three thin smoke-trails rising. Yellow rays of sunlight fan from behind the figure across a blue sky.
Lettering on the cover, the only printed text on the page:
Ye Mystic Revellers
1939
AI Notes
Album page with a single large color-printed program or souvenir-book cover mounted to fill the sheet. The cover is a bright lithograph in red, gold, green, blue, and pink: a costumed figure in a striped robe and feathered headband stands on a sandy ground beside a palm tree at left and a bundled bonfire at right, with stylized rays of light radiating from behind. The title ‘Ye Mystic Revellers’ is set across the top in ornate red lettering with curling serifs, and the date ‘1939’ is printed at the bottom in red. The only text on the cover is the title and the year, with no engraver/printer credit visible; pairs directly with the studio portrait of Mary Ann Walker as a Maid in the Revellers Court on page 172.
The Revellers program corresponds to the studio photograph on page 172, where Mary Ann Walker is captioned as a “Maid in Revellers Court during her debut year 1938–1939.” Ye Mystic Revellers was a Jacksonville, Florida Mardi Gras-style krewe whose annual ball featured a king, queen, and court of debutante maids. Mary Ann Walker (b. 8 Jun 1918), the compiler’s youngest daughter, would have been twenty during the 1938–1939 ball season — the customary debut year.