Eighteenth Day of Advent

What a surprise! Dazzling streams of light! Fancy a fine tree with a hundred blue, red, white and green candles, and its branches loaded with all manner of fine things!

From ‘The Children’s International Christmas Album’ by the Countess D’Elff, published in London by Asher & Co., 1870.

What remarkably dainty feet this family has! They make a decorous tableau in their finery, a strangely static pose in mid-action.

I’m afraid I have no information about the author/illustrator (are they one and the same?). As my daughter-in-law remarked, you couldn’t possibly have a more Christmassy author than the Countess D’Elff! Is that a real name? Or a pseudonym? I can feel a minor research project coming on …

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