A Merry Christmas card with winged fairies among flowers

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Winged fairies drifting among blossoms make this card a lighter take on the season than the solemn nativity scenes that dominate older holiday art. Greeting cards of this kind became popular in the later 19th century, when printers in Britain, Germany and the United States used color lithography to produce affordable seasonal images for families to send and keep. Fairy motifs were especially common, borrowed from the folklore and children's book illustration of the era, and they helped soften the religious associations of Christmas for a broad audience. Notice how the figures are placed among flowers rather than in a stable or sky, a choice typical of cards meant to be pleasant and sentimental.

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