- Victorian
- Greeting Card
- Manufacturers
- for Christmas
- and the
- New Year
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The Cole Horsley Card
The Worlds first commercial Christmas card was designed by John Callcott Horsley (brother-in-law of Isambard Kingdom Brunel), for his friend Henry Cole, founder of the Victoria & Albert Museum. One thousand copies were published by Joseph Cundall, the mid 19th century children’s and illustrations publisher, and sold at Felix Summerly’s Home Treasury Office in Old Bond Street, England for one shilling each in 1843.
Cole’s card is about the size of an ordinary postcard. Trellis work and
garlands of ivy create a rustic frame for a kind of triptych. The oblong
side-pieces depict the charitable acts of clothing the naked
and feeding the hungry, whilst the middle part shows a happy
family gathering, drinking a toast to Christmas and the New Year, inviting
us to join in.
Good works and good eating and drinking, the two elements of a Victorian
Christmas, make their appearance together, as it should be, on this first card.
- Top
- De La Rue reproduction of the Cole Horsley card
- by chromolithography in 1881, Series No 459
- 127 x 83mm (5 x 3¼ ins)
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