Victorian New Year Holly Greeting Card with Children, 1890s

The card text promises to greet you 'in all sincerity,' yet the scene suggests something far more ominous. Two children in robes — one white, one an aggressively red floor-length situation — huddle together with unsettling intimacy, apparently fascinated by a striped stocking on New Year's morning while a tiny drum dangles from one child's hand like a war trophy. The dark-haired child in red gazes downward with the thousand-yard stare of someone who has Seen Things, while their companion leans in close enough to whisper secrets no child should know. Looming above this domestic tableau, a sprig of holly the size of a small country threatens to consume the entire card, its berries glistening with the menace of fruit that has ambitions.