Victorian Christmas Card: Child with Holly & Dog, 1880s-1890s

There's an unsettling determination radiating from this scene—a child swathed in a floor-length salmon-pink coat with an oversized scalloped collar and matching beribboned bonnet, clearly equipped for violence with a full arsenal of snowballs clutched in both hands with the focused energy of someone settling a grudge. The pug standing beside her wears the exhausted, thousand-yard stare of a witness who has seen too much, surrounded on all sides by holly that is frankly threatening in its abundance, as if the artist was paid per berry. The girl's upward sideways glance—not at you, not at the pug, not at anything in particular—suggests she has already identified her target, and God help whoever that is.