Santa Claus's Mail
1871 · Wood engraving (first published in Harper's Weekly, 30 December 1871) · 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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About this work
- Artist
- Thomas Nast (1840–1902)
- Year
- 1871
- Medium
- Wood engraving (first published in Harper's Weekly, 30 December 1871)
- 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 sits in a deep armchair at a crowded desk, wearing spectacles and reading a letter, a quill pen between his teeth and a pipe smoking beside him. A towering stack of paper on the left is labelled Letters from Naughty Children's Parents; a much smaller pile on the right is for good children. Two framed pictures on the wall are titled Naughty Children and Good Children. Toys stand on the floor below: a dog, a cat, a jack-in-the-box and a rabbit, beside a full wastepaper basket. The scene is framed by a border of holly. Thomas Nast drew it for the front page of Harper's Weekly on 30 December 1871. It was reprinted in 1890 in Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race, the source of this black-line wood engraving.
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 reading his mail at a desk of letters, drawn in black line with a holly border on cream paper. It suits a study, a home office or the entryway for the holiday season, with Vermeer's The Love Letter; frame it in black.
Size, framing & materials
- Style
- Golden Age of Illustration painting
- Era
- 19th century (1871)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- classic
- Rooms
- hallway or entryway, study or library, home office, 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
