Christmas Card (Third Prize Winner of Louis Prang's Christmas Card Competition, 1881)

In 1881, Louis Prang & Company, the leading printer and publisher of chromolithographs in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century, held their second annual Christmas card design competition. Charles Caryl Coleman, a leading artist of the Aesthetic Movement, won third prize for his painting of a still life of decorative objects representing various cultural traditions set within an interior that also bears the evidence of diverse aesthetic influences. Coleman’s design relates to his painting Apple Blossoms of 1889, also in the collection of The Met (1996.102). Prang reproduced the design as a multi-color lithograph and included a poem by Celia Thaxter on the back, along with a caption declaring Coleman as the winner of a $500 award for his submission. The card is decorated with silk fringe in gradations of yellow, orange, and red along its four edges, and a no-longer existing string at the top would have allowed recipients of the card to hang it on the walls of their home or on their Christmas tree.