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In case you wondered about the first commercially sold Xmas card(s) ... One of these rare 1843 originals is currently being offered for sale.
It depicts a party scene, bracketed by what appear to be background scenes of charitable acts. No Santa / Father Xmas, nor any religious symbolism ...
FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/scandalous-1st-christmas-card-for-sale-486fac306f93c7954a945fd4d99e7136
It depicts a party scene, bracketed by what appear to be background scenes of charitable acts. No Santa / Father Xmas, nor any religious symbolism ...
Cheers! Or not: ‘Scandalous’ 1st Christmas card up for sale
The first commercially printed Christmas card is up for sale — a merry Victorian-era scene that scandalized some who denounced it as humbug when it first appeared in 1843.
The card ... depicts an English family toasting the recipient with glasses of red wine.
“A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You,” it reads. But for teetotalers — and there were plenty of those in the 19th century — the imagery included a bit too much holiday cheer: In the foreground, a young girl is pictured taking a sip from an adult’s glass. ...
That didn’t sit well at the time with the puritanical Temperance Society, which kicked up such a fuss it took three years before another Christmas card was produced.
“They were quite distressed that in this ‘scandalous’ picture they had children toasting with a glass of wine along with the adults. They had a campaign to censor and suppress it,” said Justin Schiller, founder and president of Kingston, New York-based Battledore Ltd., a dealer in antiquarian books who is selling the card.
... (T)he hand-colored lithograph is believed to have been a salesperson’s sample. Only 1,000 copies were printed and sold for a shilling apiece, and experts believe fewer than 30 have survived, he said.
The card, intended to double as a greeting for Christmas and New Year’s Day, was designed by painter and illustrator John Callcott Horsley at the suggestion of Sir Henry Cole, a British civil servant and inventor who founded the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Cole is widely credited with starting the tradition of sending holiday cards, a multimillion-dollar industry today. ...
It’s believed to have gone on sale in the same week in December 1843 that Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” first was published. ...
FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/scandalous-1st-christmas-card-for-sale-486fac306f93c7954a945fd4d99e7136