Holly Ring

Description

The Museum’s festive Holly Ring is based on an early twentieth-century Christmas card depicting a holly branch brimming with berries in the Museum’s Jefferson R. Burdick Collection. The Burdick Collection represents the life work of Jefferson R. Burdick (1900–1963), who was devoted to collecting and cataloguing trade cards and other types of paper collectibles. His collection offers a delightful journey through nineteenth- and twentieth-century American culture, with its massive assortment of advertising, baseball, greeting, and playing cards and other paper collectibles.

18K gold overlay, hand enameled with red glass beads. 1/4''W.

Art History

The first Christmas card was privately printed in London in 1843. In subsequent decades, the commercial production of Christmas cards became widespread in Europe and America as their exchange grew in popularity, and printing companies provided customers with thousands of varieties from which to choose. Jefferson R. Burdick (1900- 1963) began collecting American ephemera when he was ten years old. So absorbed was Burdick by his passion for collecting that he devised a system for categorizing trade cards that was published as the American Card Catalogue in 1939. Subsequent editions appeared every few years until 1960; his system remains in use today.