[Cole, Henry (pseud. "Felix Summerly")]

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You. London: [Joseph Cundall for] Summerly's Home Treasury Office, [December 1843]



Hand-colored lithographed card (3 1/4 x 5 1/8 in.; 83 x 130 mm), in the form of a triptych, the central panel depicting a family party of three generations in which the adults are toasting the health of the addressee with wine, the side panels representing Christmas charity (the poor being fed and given warm clothing), inscribed at the top "My very dear Father & Mother" and signed "Their loving Son, Joe." Together with: Printer's proof of the first Christmas card, printed in red ink, inscribed "To Mr. & Mrs. G. Wallis & family from Henry Cole 1865"; remnant of glue mount on verso of proof. Linen album housed within linen folding case.

Card: Frank Staff (sale, Messengers Sale 38, 14 December 1995, lot 458) — Kenneth Rowe. Proof: Joyce Blundell Tonge (Sotheby's London, 29 November 1989, lot 194) 

Kenneth Rowe, The Ephemerist (December 1997), p. 713, identifying the present proof

The first Christmas card, one of three in the collection, along with a proof of the card inscribed by Henry Cole, one of five known to survive, and one of three remaining in private hands. The Christmas card is inscribed "My very dear Father & Mother" and signed "Joe." It has been speculated that "Joe" is Joseph Cundall.

Cole kept proofs as souvenirs of his inventiveness. In 1865 he gave several away, including one to his daughter Henrietta. That proof is believed to be in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. Kenneth Rowe's census of the first Christmas card and proofs, published in The Ephemerist, uncovered a fourth proof in the Laura Seddon Collection at the Manchester Metropolitan University. The remaining two are in the Elliott collection. This proof is inscribed to Mr. and Mrs. George Wallis.  Wallis later became head of the Victoria and Albert Museum, of which Cole was a founder.

Sotheby's gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Ephemera Society of Great Britain by providing a copy of the census.