This Curio is an alternate artwork of the card Desecrate by Pedro Ferreira.
This Curio removes the red pentagram from the original image and instead leaves the figure hanging upside down above the altar, although the blood splatters remain.
This Curio could possibly be a reference to the Magic the Gathering card Unholy Strength (pictured below). The original artwork for the card had a Pentagram, but it was edited and removed in 4th Edition due to its Satanic nature and pressure from Christian groups.
A question often asked by Sorcery fans is how did this concept come to be?
How was the pentagram removed?
Here is the full story from artist Pedro Ferreira:
"This card obviously depicts a brutal scene of violence and sacrilege.
While the main idea we tried to convey in this illustration, I worked with the intent of doing it in the most elegant way possible, without displaying too much visceral gore.
[The art concept direction...]
The illustration would have to include a pentagram painted with the priest's blood, as well as the slain body of the clergyman.
I chose to lean heavily into the silhouettes, so the main thing the player sees is the figure of the priest hanging upside down, his blood dripping from his severed neck, upon the altar.
In a brutal scene such as this, blood would of course be splattered everywhere, and that's where my creative input for the Curio version stops....
I didn't know this would be a curio card, so it was 100% Erik's decision to ahve a version without a pentagram. Unlike the Gift of the Frog card, where the variant was done traditionally [Pedro informed me separately that he initially wanted the base version of Gift of the Frog to have a bow on his head, but Erik had the idea to save the bow for the Curio version, so the painting was scanned before the bow for the standard version and then again after for the Curio version!], in Desecrate the editing was done digitally."
Thanks so much to Pedro for the insights, concept sketch, and final painting images!
