Puck Christmas, 1907
by Science Source
Title
Puck Christmas, 1907
Artist
Science Source
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Entitled "Puck Christmas 1907" chromolithograph showing two women helping Puck hang Christmas decorations; they have used holly to form the name of the magazine "Puck" at the top of a window. Puck was America's first successful humor magazine of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was published from 1871 until 1918. It was the first magazine to carry illustrated advertising and the first to successfully adopt full-color lithography printing for a weekly publication. In English folklore, Puck is a mischievous nature sprite, demon, or fairy. Holly, Ivy and other greenery such as Mistletoe were originally used in pre-Christian times to help celebrate the Winter Solstice Festival and ward off evil spirits and to celebrate new growth. When Christianity came into Western Europe, some people wanted to keep the greenery, to give it Christian meanings but also to ban the use of it to decorate homes. The prickly leaves of holly represent the crown of thorns that Jesus wore when he was crucified. The berries are the drops of blood that were shed by Jesus because of the thorns. In Scandinavia it is known as the Christ Thorn. In pagan times, Holly was thought to be a male plant and Ivy a female plant. An old tradition from the Midlands of England says that whatever one was brought into the house first over winter, tells you whether the man or woman of the house would rule that year! But it was unlucky to bring either into a house before Christmas Eve. Illustrated by Frank Arthur Nankivell for Puck and published by Keppler & Schwarzmann, December 4, 1907.
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December 13th, 2016
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