Vintage Owl & Child Friendship Greeting Card, Early 1900s

The decision to give the crescent moon an actual human face is perhaps the only choice here that needs justifying—yet there it hovers in the upper left corner, rendered with full opinions about the scene below. A small figure wearing a pointed hat serenades a large, judgmental-looking owl perched on what appears to be a branch in the dead of night, and the owl stares back with the energy of someone trapped at an open mic night, looking absolutely done with this entire performance. 'Owld Friends Are Dearest' announces the card in cheerful script, delivering a pun so groan-worthy it could only have been conceived in an era that also thought consumption was romantic. The entire scene is rendered in grainy black-and-white darkness, making what is technically a friendship card feel like documentation of a woodland hostage situation.