Spirits and Seekers: Cagliostro in Courland is a planned watercolor-painted graphic novella based on Countess Elisa von der Recke's account of alchemist "Count" Alessandro di Cagliostro's stay with her relatives in Courland, an 18th-century duchy in what is now Latvia.
Excerpted here is a scene in which Elisa and Cagliostro accompany Elisa's Uncle Otto and other family members to Uncle Otto's country house in Wilzen (now Vilce), in search of a buried treasure concerning which Cagliostro claims he received spirit communication. Elisa and most of her relatives, including her father and Uncle Otto, have been initiated into Cagliostro's rite of Egyptian Freemasonry, which, unlike most other Masonic rites, admits women.
Art © 2009 by E. J. Barnes. At left: Page 18. Download the sample PDF (2.5Mb).