Victorian Christmas Greeting Card with Spaniel Portrait & Poppies

The card's cheerful 'May You Have A Merry Christmas' message clashes strikingly with its composition: a framed black-and-white spaniel stares out with the thousand-yard gaze of a dog who has witnessed the collapse of several empires, surrounded by aggressively red poppies. The relentlessly, oppressively gold background somehow makes the dog look even more like a Victorian ghost trapped between worlds. Whoever decided that blood-red poppies, a haunted spaniel portrait, and multicolored illuminated-manuscript lettering belonged on a festive greeting was either a genius or deeply unwell, and honestly, a century later, we still can't tell which.