170 years of Christmas Card Cats & Dogs

Nov. 30, 2011 - PRLog -- Cats and dogs seem to have no explicit connection with Christmas, yet they are constantly appearing during the high holidays, from commercials to Christmas cards, often frolicking around presents under the decorated tree or snoozing peacefully. No doubt about it, our house pets have became part of our families over a century ago. “No house is a home without a cat” was a late Victorian cliché, and it was during this period that dogs began to be considered inside animals as well, instead of merely herders or hunters.

In England during the 1830’s, dogs surrounded by royal luxuries became a favored subject of aristocratic paintings, not lightly spurred on by the fact that Queen Victoria owned 14 breeds of dogs and commissioned royal paintings of several of them. Shortly after, as was the style of the times, once endorse by the monarchy, these interest began to replicated by the public, who demanded affordable art featuring the newly added family members of cats and dogs. Christmas as a festive celebration and not just a time for religious observance began to take hold during this time as well.

In 1843, Sir Henry Cole, founder of the Victoria & Albert Museum, commissioned John Horsley to design a Christmas card, and had 1,000 printed. They were wildly popular, and soon after, other engravers were manufacturing all sorts of cards depicting pets with the family, and eventually pets alone, often with a greeting or in a Christmas setting. The Christmas pet had become a popular institution in England, and Christmas cards featuring cats and dogs spread to America, Europe, and the rest of the world over the next century.

This tradition has persisted to this day, and in celebration of the importance of our cats and dogs, Red Rock Press is offering to stuff your stocking with delightful books of Victorian Christmas cards featuring pets. For friends of felines and dog lovers, we have “The Christmas Cat Book” and “The Christmas Dog Book” by Margaret Denk, and for those who prefer birds, horses, ducks, pigs, and other outdoor animals, we have “The Christmas Animal Book” by Clint Viebrock. Each of these wonderful, stocking-sized books is currently discounted 40% to just $6.95. You can learn more by visiting http://redrockpress.com/celebration.html and scrolling down, or by contacting Dan Kleinman at the information below.

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Daniel Kleinman
Red Rock Press
Daniel@RedRockPress.com
212-362-8304