56 
House & Garden 
■■gmnnii-. . . . ...■b»biiim«iiiiiiii!iiiiii!iiii! .i;.Ill.nun.......... 
THE C. M. TRAVER COMPANY 
23 EAST 62nd STREET 
NEW YORK 
ANTIQUE FURNITURE 
and FURNISHINGS in 
ITALIAN; FRENCH, 
ENGLISH and SPANISH 
EARLY AMERICAN EXAMPLES 
AUTHENTIC OLD PIECES 
THE MACBETH GALLERY 
“ Intimate Paintings 
by our best 
AMERICAN ARTISTS 
An unusual opportunity for 
lovers of fine pictures, but 
with limited wall space 
Catalogue and particulars will 
be mailed promptly on request 
WILLIAM MACBETH 
Incorporated 
450 Fifth Avenue (at Fortieth street) New York 
* 'OUT OF THE SILENCE" 
GEORGE DE FOREST BRUSH 
Walter Crane designed for Christmas a 
May Day card! 
The Story of the Christmas Card 
(Continued from page 19) 
Christmas cards, just as there are now, 
but those cards of yesterday have not, 
on the whole, been surpassed in their 
Christmas atmosphere by the cards 
which have followed them. May a 
renaissance of their spirit come to pass! 
Cards and Their Makers 
After Sir Henry Cole’s successful card 
appeared—that it was successful is at¬ 
tested by Messrs. De la Rue’s repro¬ 
duction of it in 1881 by chromo-lithog¬ 
raphy attests — many card printers 
entered the field with Christmas cards. 
I can well imagine that the firm of 
R. Canton were immediate followers 
of the 1846 experiment, for as early as 
1840 Canton was well known through 
his publishing numerous sets of valen¬ 
tine and birthday cards. T. Sulman and 
Dean & Sons must have likewise been 
alert in this line. Elliott of Bucklesbury 
has been credited with the introduction 
of chromo-lithographed Christmas cards 
and 1858 is put as the date of the first 
Christmas cards with designs in relief 
stamped in colors. Before 1850 cards 
were colored by stencilling or hand- 
colored. The more elaborately embossed 
cards were the product of a Fleet Street 
card publisher, Thierry by name, who 
was the first publisher to develop the 
Christmas card trade to anything like 
remarkable proportions. Messrs. Good- 
all, however, have probably best claim 
to be the first Christmas card publish¬ 
ers about whose products we have au¬ 
thentic date information. They issued 
a series of Christmas cards designed by 
C. H. Bennett in 1864 followed by other 
Bennett sets up to 1867. 
By the time the ’70s arrived the 
Christmas card must have become firm¬ 
ly established. The period 1878 to 1888 
has been put as the one 
in which the finest cards 
were produced. 
Of course, the Christ¬ 
mas card collector—there 
are such persons; Mr. 
Jonathan King had, 
some twenty years ago 
over 150,000 different 
Christmas cards mounted 
in some 700 volumes!— 
will prize the earliest ex¬ 
amples even though they 
may not be so beautiful, 
and fortunate indeed is 
he who may chance upon 
the Cole card of 1846! 
American Cards 
Louis Prang of Boston 
was the pioneer of 
Christmas card publish¬ 
ers in America. Prang 
was born in Prussia but 
left Germany in 1848 as 
he refused to bend to 
Prussian slavery. He had 
taken part in anti-auto- 
cratic revolutionary ac¬ 
tivities and in 1850 
sought a home in the 
Land of the Free, be¬ 
coming loyally attached 
to the home of his adoption. Being 
of Norman-Huguenot stock, it is not 
strange that he sought liberty rather 
than Prussian spiritual disintegration. 
In 1856 Prang founded his famous 
lithographic establishment in Boston. 
The early floral, fruit, bird and other 
fancy cards printed in gay colors and 
used by merchants throughout the coun¬ 
try in the period following the Civil 
War and later the Centennial Exposi¬ 
tion of 1876 suggested to Mrs. O. E. 
Whitney the suitability of such designs 
being issued for sale at Christmas time 
with “Merry Christmas” printed upon 
them. These cards were immediately 
popular and the demand for them im¬ 
mense. The Prang firm employed the 
best artists and their work not only 
equalled, but surpassed that of the En¬ 
glish firms. Exhibited at the Vienna 
Exhibition it inspired the Austrians and 
the Germans to enter the field, but the 
German cards never equalled the Prang 
products, nor, as a matter of fact, the 
English cards of Marcus Ward, Raphael 
Tuck, Eyre & Spottiswood, De la Rue 
or other famous English Christmas card 
producers. 
American Artists Compete 
The Prangs held several Christmas 
card design competitions, the first in 
1880, when Samuel Colman, Richard 
M. Hunt, E. C. Moore of Messrs. Tif¬ 
fany & Co. were judges. The judges 
of the last contest were Samuel Col¬ 
man, John LaFarge and Louis C. Tif¬ 
fany. The designs contributed were by 
the foremost artists of the day and 
were later exhibited in the leading cities 
of the United States. Among the prize¬ 
winners were Elihu Vedder, whose mu¬ 
ral paintings came later to lend dignity 
to the decoration of the 
Library of Congress in 
Washington ; Dora 
Wheeler, Charles CaryL 
Coleman, Rosina Emmet, 
C. D. Weldon, Will H. 
Low, Thomas Moran, 
Frederick Dielman. 
Among other artists whc* 
designed cards for Prang 
and whose names were 
later to become noted in. 
the annals of American 
art were F. G. Atwood, 
Reginald B. Birch, Wil¬ 
liam M. Chase, F. S. 
Church, Palmer Cox (in¬ 
ventor of the Brownies), 
Paul de Longpre, the fa¬ 
mous flower-painter of 
bygone days but a mas¬ 
ter unapproached by to¬ 
day’s moderns; Abbott 
H. Thayer, Thure de 
Thulstrop, Frederick 
Waugh, J. Carroll Beck¬ 
with, T. W. Dewing, E. 
H. Blashfield, J. Alden 
Weir and Douglas Volk. 
Celia Thaxter and other 
noted writers contribut¬ 
ed verses and “senti¬ 
ments” for the designs. 
y' ' -V wbj. .Tw- Ml be lit 
i!§I-.WISH VoV->appt 
Personal card of 1892, 
by W. Midgley 
