From the Library of Congress:
On National Christmas Card Day we are pleased to share, from the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, a copy of the first commercial Christmas card, created in 1843.
It was, by coincidence, the same year that Charles Dickens published “A Christmas Carol.”
The two creations, and the iconography they inspired, went a long way toward establishing the Victorian concept of Christmas, which, in turn, we now regard as the “traditional” Christmas.
Henry Cole, a British civil servant and patron of the arts, commissioned friend and illustrator John Calcott Horsley to design a card that he could send to friends and family in lieu of writing lengthy Christmas letters. Horsley used chromolithography, a process suited to making lots and lots of copies.
You can see the lines at the top and bottom of the card where recipient and sender names are meant to be written. Horsley signed this card in the “From” field in the bottom right corner.
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‘words have no wings, but they can fly a thousand miles.’
-korean proverb
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Image: The very first mass-produced Christmas card, 1843.
Illustrated by John Calcott Horsley. 1843.
Photographed by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.
I didn't have my glasses on.... 