The Christmas Tree
date: label: date made
content: ca 1860
name: label: distributor?
content: Whiting, F. P.
label: maker
content: E.B. and E.C. Kellogg
notes: label: Description
content: Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater world. Romantic scenes picture devoted husbands with their contented, dutiful wives. In these prints, young women educated in reading, music, needlework, the arts, the language of flowers, basic math and science are subjugated to their family’s needs.
label: Description
content: These prints became popular as lithography was introduced to 19th Century Americans. As a new art form, it was affordable for the masses and provided a means to share visual information by crossing the barriers of race, class and language. Sentimental prints encouraged the artistic endeavors of schoolgirls and promoted the ambitions of amateur artists, while serving as both moral instruction and home or business decoration. They are a pictorial record of our romanticized past.
label: Description
content: This hand colored print is of an outdoor winter scene. A full length view of a boy and girl. The boy is carrying a Christmas tree over his right shoulder, the girl is carrying a basket of greens. Both are wearing simple, every day outdoor dress topped with hats, the boy's with a tassel. German-Americans brought with them the tradition of the Christmas tree and by the middile of the 19th Century trees decorating trees had become popular in both England and the United States.
label: Description
content: This print was produced by the lithographic firm E.B. & E.C. Kellogg. Edmund Burke Kellogg and Elijah Chapman Kellogg were brothers of the founder of the Kellogg lithography firm, Daniel Wright Kellogg. After D.W. Kellogg moved west, his two brothers took over the family lithography firm in 1840 and changed the name to E.B. & E.C. Kellogg. The youngest of the four Kellogg brothers, these two were responsible for the continued success of the family firm. These two brothers were also involved in the eventual partnerships between the company and Horace Thayer in 1845 or 1846, John Chenevard Comstock in 1848 and William Henry Bulkeley in 1867.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Connecticut, Hartford
topic: label: Subject
content: Children
label: Subject
content: Christmas
label: Subject
content: Adornment
label: Subject
content: Holidays and Celebrations, general
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
label: See more items in
content: Art
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content: Peters Prints
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content: Domestic Furnishings
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Peters, Harry T.. America on Stone
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.2246
label: catalog number
content: 60.2246
label: accession number
content: 228146
label: maker number
content: 169
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hand-colored (image production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 12 1/2 in x 9 in; 31.75 cm x 22.86 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 in x 19 in; 35.56 cm x 48.26 cm