Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good-Night!
by 1890 · Wood engraving · Getty Research Institute
The whole print, uncropped, on a printed cream mat with its title beneath.
Museum-quality archival paper: heavyweight, acid-free, resists yellowing
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This print
About this work
- Artist
- Thomas Nast (1840–1902)
- Year
- by 1890
- Medium
- Wood engraving
- Collection
- Getty Research Institute (Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race, 1890)
- Movement
- Golden Age of Illustration
- Series
- Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race
Santa Claus flies away in his sleigh over the rooftops of a snowy town, waving his pipe, his reindeer bounding ahead into a burst of light. Below are steeples, chimneys, bare trees and snow on the roofs, with a low moon at the left of the night sky. The caption is the closing line of the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, first published in 1823, which gave Santa his sleigh and reindeer. Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly for more than twenty years. The engraving is in black line, with the sky built from fine parallel strokes. It is a plate from Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race, published by Harper & Brothers in 1890.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Santa's sleigh flying over snowy roofs and steeples under a night sky, in black and white. It suits a bedroom, the landing or the mantel through the holiday season, with Whistler's Nocturne in Grey and Gold: Chelsea Snow; frame it in black.
Size, framing & materials
- Style
- Golden Age of Illustration painting
- Era
- 19th century (by 1890)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- dramatic, moody
- Rooms
- bedroom, hallway or entryway, living room, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. Prints at 12×18, 16×24 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway. See it to scale on your wall →
Framing. The gallery ground is part of the print, so frame it without a mat — dark wood flatters the lighter palette; black sharpens it.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
- Restored in-house from a scan of the original print, cleaned and colour-trued at museum resolution
- Museum-quality archival paper: heavyweight, acid-free, resists yellowing
- Framed option: wood frame in black or dark wood, 12 mm wide and 22 mm deep, with a plexiglass front and no mat; the print is mounted inside and the frame's outside measures the listed size
- Made to order; colours may vary slightly from screen
