Here's a disturbing postcard illustration, definitely worthy of the amazing @HorribleSanity Twitter feed, for this holiday season.
It's a Christmas mystery, too.
I bought this postcard on eBay in 2016, thinking it was a vintage oddity. (The listing was a bit misleading, it turns out.) It's actually a modern reprint postcard of what might or might not be a vintage oddity. I have no idea what the story is behind this illustration, and Google isn't much help.
In most of the other online occurences of this illustration (Pinterest, etc.), it's simply labeled "Creepy Christmas."
In addition to the Google reverse image search, I tried searching for things like "christmas postcard snowmen with severed human head." That didn't provide any leads, either. But it sure spices up my search history.
It sort of looks like something that Edward Gorey might have drawn. But that seems to be a dead end, too. If he did this piece, it would be famous.
So, for now, it just remains a Merry Mystery.
Sweet dreams!
This is a macabre bastardization of the 1882 drawing entitled Bringing Home the Christmas Tree by an artist named (perhaps pseudonymously) A. Hunt.
ReplyDeleteThe original drawing can be seen here: http://www.gettyimages.ca/license/50607291
And here: https://books.google.com/books?id=r8aVAyTvG0kC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=%22a.+hunt%22+%22bringing+home+the+christmas+tree%22&source=bl&ots=AmSXXVAaaU&sig=gRC2OZ-99VGYlKnOSgEGrlONiFU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2w7bnz6jYAhXpiVQKHfWzAfUQ6AEIRTAL#v=onepage&q=%22a.%20hunt%22%20%22bringing%20home%20the%20christmas%20tree%22&f=false
His (or her) artwork appears throughout many editions over many years of the Illustrated London News as shown here: http://www.iln.org.uk/iln_years/year/xmas2.htm
-- M.F.
Wow! Great work, Mark. I am thoroughly excited about and impressed by this development!
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