Christmas Dreams Of Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Old Age -

London: Ward, Marcus & Co, 1880. (8)pp., accordion-fold. A New Year's card consisting of a four-panel panorama brilliantly printed in bright colors with gold backgrounds. The card allegorically depicts the year in the stages of its "life": as a child, dreaming of pudding and music-filled fun; a young man, whose dreams include frolicking with a young lady; in middle age, surrounded by phantom bills; and as an old man, dreaming of youth. The obverse of the panorama contains poems for each season of life signed with the initials "M.R." The firm of Marcus Ward & Co. began producing Christmas cards as early as 1867, using the technique of illuminated printing, or chromolithographic printing in gold and rich, saturated colors, and employed artists, such as Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and Georgie Gaskin, to elevate what had been ephemera to the realm of decorative art object. Marcus Ward's fine art aesthetic was instrumental in the rising popularity of Christmas cards during the Victorian period. Minor wear to wrappers, else fine in colorfully printed green card wrappers.