A Young Girl Dressed Up for Christmas, Wearing a Fur Coat and Muff and Carrying a Holly Branch by Kate Greenaway. [Public domain] via Wikimedia CommonsIsn’t this little girl so charming and sweet-looking in her fur-trimmed coat and big hat? She was drawn by British illustrator Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), who specialized in such images of well-dressed children. This one looks like she’s trying to be all grown up, but she really reminds me of my American Girl doll. The long holly branch in her hand only emphasizes how small she is. I remember being excited to get all dressed up for Christmas when I was this little girl’s age. Greenaway illustrated many books for children, but this drawing doesn’t seem to have come from any of them.
Bonus: A found this illustration through this article about historical Christmas art. In addition to the Greenaway drawing and the Viggo Johansen painting I featured yesterday, there are a whole bunch of other gorgeous works of art to enjoy there.
Alexandra Kiely, aka A Scholarly Skater, is an art historian based in the northeastern United States. She loves wandering down the dark and dusty corners of art history and wholeheartedly believes in visual art's ability to enrich every person's life.
Her favorite periods of art history are 19th-century American painting and medieval European art and architecture. When she not looking at, reading about, writing about, or teaching art, she's probably ice dancing or reading.
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