#john horsley

[diioonysus]

reading + art

[oncanvas]

Juliet and Her Nurse, John Callcott Horsley, 1872

Oil on canvas 55 ⅞ x 43 ¾ in. (141.9 x 111.2 cm)

[random-brushstrokes]

John Callcott Horsley - At The Window (1877)

[thepaintedroom]

John Callcott Horsley (British, 1817-1903) • A Quiet Corner • 1865

[clove-pinks]

Henry Cole's 1843 Christmas card, with art by John Callcott Horsley: the famous "first Christmas card," contemporary with the publication of A Christmas Carol (Wikimedia Commons).

Some interesting parts of this article include a temperance brouhaha over children drinking wine on the card, and the first American-made Christmas cards dating from 1875, which feels shockingly late. The modern concept of Christmas in the anglosphere is not very old at all.

[dollboy7]

John David Horsley 1930s publicity portrait.

[first-of-her-nxme]

How I imagine a quiet day at the Red Keep. Princess Elia Martell or Lady Ashara Dayne reading one of Rhaegar's books.

A Pleasant Corner, 1865 by John Callcott Horsley (English, 1817–1903)

[iambitzy]

"Juliet and her nurse"

{1872}

By ~ John Callcott Horsley

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Victorian Christmas Cards

Printed Christmas cards became popular in the Victorian period (1837-1901), thanks to a combination of cheaper printing techniques and even cheaper post, with the arrival of the Penny Black postage stamp.

Coming in all shapes, sizes and materials, Christmas cards were sent in their millions to all corners of the British Empire.

Victorian illustrators created an entire mythology of exactly what we imagine a European Christmas should look like with their now-classic scenes of present-covered Christmas trees, holly, robins, sleighs, and snow-covered country lanes.

When we dream of a white Christmas, it is the festive cards of the 19th century, which are largely responsible for that evergreen imagery.

Origins

Adults have, of course, been writing letters to each other for centuries.

Even before there was an official public post system, letters were delivered in person, by servants, and via transport coaches.

There had also been prints made from the 15th century, using woodcuts or copperplate printing techniques, especially for calendars.

It was in the Victorian period that several factors conspired to make printed Christmas cards the hugely popular phenomenon they became.

The historians Antony and Peter Miall suggest in The Victorian Christmas Book that the origins of cards for the festive season lie in the classroom.

From the 18th century, schoolmasters had their pupils work on a 'Christmas Piece' in the month of December.

This work involved pupils selecting a sheet of fine paper and producing a sample of their writing, principally to show off to their parents evidence of their academic progress that year.

The paper often came with a decorated engraved border, and by the 19th century, it was popular for the pupils to draw their own decorative borders using coloured ink.

"These offerings were the forerunners of the great Victorian Christmas Card" (Miall, 37).

Other sources of inspiration for the decorative Christmas card may have been printed music sheets with decorative borders and covers, engravings commissioned to mark important anniversaries, school reward cards for hard-working pupils, fine illustrated notepaper, and the more ornate varieties of visiting cards, which were left when one called upon someone and they were not at home.

The First Christmas Card

Sir Henry Cole (1808-1882) was a civil servant who had, in 1840, reformed the British postal system by helping to create the Universal Penny Post where senders used the now-famous Penny Black postage stamps.

Cole would later become the first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In 1843, Cole had a brilliant idea.

Not only could he save himself writing different individualised letters to his friends and family at Christmas, but he could also brighten the season with a colourful card printed for the express purpose of sending his compliments of the season.

Accordingly, Cole commissioned John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903), an artist and illustrator who was a member of the Royal Academy, to produce the first printed Christmas card.

THE FIRST CARDS WENT ON SALE TO THE PUBLIC AT THE RATHER HIGH PRICE OF ONE SHILLING PER CARD.

Horsley's design for the card, which was about the size of an ordinary visiting card (2 x 3 inches or 5 x 7.5 cm), showed different generations of the Horsley family raising a toast – presumably to the absent friend who is the recipient of the card – while flanked with scenes showing acts of charity, then, as now, an important element of the Christmas season.

On the left are people giving food to the needy, and on the right, they give clothing.

There was a border of a wood frame intertwined with ivy, and below the main image, a greeting of "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You."

There was a space along the very top and bottom of the card left blank to write a short handwritten and personalised message to the receiver.

One thousand such cards were printed and then hand-coloured. The cards went on sale to the public at the rather high price of one shilling per card.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a new and relatively expensive idea, there were few buyers.

The Idea Catches On

Fortunately for the future of Christmas cards, the royal family was enthusiastic for all things Christmassy.

In particular, Prince Albert (1819-1861) brought German Christmas traditions to England such as the Christmas tree.

It was the younger members of the royal family who adopted the idea of sending each other handmade greeting cards both at Christmas and New Year. 

Queen Victoria must have approved since she later started the trend of public figures sending 'official' Christmas cards showing more often than not themselves and their family in a festive setting.

Then, in 1844, there was another attempt at the commercial Christmas card, and this was much more successful.

Mr W. C. T. Dobson sold a printed card, which carried an illustration of the "Spirit of Christmas."

In 1848, a card printed by William Maw Edgley (1826-1916) repeated the theme of Cole's card but added scenes of general merriment and holly to the imagery.

Printers now knew they were onto a good thing. They became more and more ambitious with the designs of their cards, which were available to buy in stationers and bookshops.

From 1879, rather than pricey single cards, people could buy cheap packs of cards from tobacconists and toy shops, often imported from Germany.

This development went hand-in-hand with the new half-penny post for postcards, and so now people of all classes could send Christmas cards to their loved ones.

Victorian Christmas Card Designs

The first cards were printed on small single sheets of card, but they soon progressed to come in all shapes and sizes.

Victorian Christmas cards were typically lithographed and hand-coloured before colour-printing took over.

Many used embossed paper, sometimes with cut-out parts to resemble lace, particularly for borders.

There were even cards decorated with ribbons, tassels, real lace, tinsel, and coloured glass.

Satin, silk and brocade were also popular materials to enhance the feel of the card.

The most exotic of cards were scented, had padded additions, and incorporated pressed flowers.

One card for sale boasted it was made of no fewer than 750 separate pieces.

If one creation reflected the Victorian love of accumulating individual beautiful materials to create an even more beautiful finished article, it was the Christmas card.

With so many possible materials being used in a single card, it is no wonder that draper's shops included them in their Christmas stock.

VICTORIAN ILLUSTRATORS WERE LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT WE TODAY IMAGINE AS A CLASSIC 'CHRISTMAS SCENE'.

There was a great variety in the shape of cards, too, with the most popular ranging from the classic rectangular form to oval, circular, diamond, crescent, and bell-shaped cards.

Some cards were folded, others made into fan shapes, or they reflected the object they illustrated such as a post box or purse.

Cards might include moving parts or flaps that could be opened to reveal an additional scene or message.

Some had tabs that, when pulled, moved the legs and arms of a character on the front of the card or they had a disk that could be turned to show different scenes in a central window.

There were all kinds of subjects depicted on cards, many of which included humorous cartoons and everyday life, sometimes not at all related to Christmas.

Religious themes remained popular such as angels and scenes from the Nativity, but there was a definite shift away from these to more secular subjects as the Victorian era progressed.

Victorian illustrators were not without humour or fear of the risqué, nor did they miss the opportunity to trick the viewer with many cards showing two scenes depending on which direction the card was held.

Victorian illustrators were largely responsible for what we today imagine as a classic 'Christmas scene':

old churches and country lanes in the snow, sleigh rides, plump robins, glistening holly and mistletoe, and presents on or under the Christmas tree.

The popular snow scenes on Victorian Christmas cards reflected the string of harsh winters in England through the 1830s and 1840s.

White Christmases became much rarer thereafter, but the scene in people's imaginations was by then set.

In the same way, the Christmas food we imagine being eaten by Dickensian characters in the 19th century is, like in the cards, always golden roast turkeys and great steaming Christmas puddings the size of cannon balls.

Father Christmas was a popular figure on cards, but he evolved over the decades.

His appearance morphing from a Falstaffian character to a jolly old man with blue trousers and a crown of holly, and finally on to his definitive red suit with white fur trim.

Father Christmas' mode of transport also evolved to keep up with the times.

The Victorian Father Christmas used any means he could to reach people's chimneys, such as the popular bicycle of the 1880s, the new motor car of the 1890s, the ever-growing modern railway network, or even a hot air balloon.

Christmas cards had become such a staple part of the season that they now attracted the top artists to illustrate them, names like Linnie Watts, who produced a series of cards showing children, and Harry Payne, who drew soldiers, a poignant theme for those with loved ones serving far from home in the armed forces of the British Empire.

Cards changed over time as tastes changed.

For example, black backgrounds to make the main picture more striking were popular in the 1870s.

Cards reflected modern trends in art, too.

By the end of the century, art nouveau designs were appearing, with highly decorative designs and subjects inspired by the works of such fashionable artists as Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939).

With cards being sent around the world, the tradition quickly took root in other countries, notably in the United States from 1874, with the cards printed by Louis Prang (1824-1909), popularly known as the "Father of American Christmas Cards."

Collecting Christmas Cards

Beautifully made and capturing memories of the season, the Victorian middle classes became avid collectors of Christmas cards, which explains why it became common to have the year printed somewhere on the card.

Perhaps the most famous card collector was George Buday.

He even wrote a celebrated book on the history of Christmas cards, his The Story of the Christmas Card.

He donated his collection of over 3,000 cards to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

This museum today has over 15,000 Christmas cards in its archives and each Christmas, it reprints old Victorian designs so that they can, once more, just as in days of yore, carry people's Christmas wishes far and wide.

[screendoll8]

John David Horsley 1930s publicity portrait.

[daugterofliterature]

A Pleasant Corner (1865) by John Callcott Horsley (English artist, lived 1817-1903). 'The world was hers for the reading.' - Betty Smith

[disneytva]

Joachim Horsley has mentioned on his IG account that Big City Greens The Movie: Spacecation has 92 cues of score aka over 80 minutes of music in total.

The film uses a full orchestra who was recorded at The John Williams/ Barbara Streisand Sony Soundstage

[upsidedownwithsteve]

Wait,, wait emmy.

I haven't read the new Steve series yet, but my friend and I went to the museum today and we caught him in 4k, he was There

And it just reminded me of what you were writing so I Had to share

(Lovers Under a Blossom Tree, 1859, John Callcott Horsley)

omg 1859 steve 😭 I love that this reminded you of lil? I feel v honoured and I hope you enjoyed your museum trip, it looks v aesthetically pleasing 😌🧡

[freneticfloetry]

🌸🔪🛼

🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them

I do! I have a cat, who’s an utter pill and the very smolest bean and the uncontested love of my life. She had a birthday last week, which she shares with Josh Groban, and got tuna and a new kitty q-tip.

This is Chloe!

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Maybe not the weirdest, but I did spend a significant amount of time researching where in England one might find a meat grinder large enough for a grown man to fall into. (And, you know, die.) It was for a Sherlock fic that’s still half-written on my hard drive.

They make it back to Baker Street two days later, with various scrapes and bruises and Sherlock's coat hung out for cleaning. Trailing Sherlock Holmes all over London is one thing. Traipsing after him through countless acres of farm country is entirely another. Sherlock has spent the past forty-eight hours searching for clues across half of Surrey Hills, spouting facts about farming equipment and rare breeds of cow. John has spent the past forty-eight hours trying to keep various local authorities from strangling Sherlock to death. By the time they'd followed the trail to its end — from crop fields in Wotton to an abattoir in West Horsley to a city farm on the south bank of the Thames — and put all the pieces in place ('seems an odd path for a plow, unless the intention was indeed "drunken crop circle"' and 'yes, how thoughtful of him to clean the equipment alone in the dead of night' and 'the herd sourced for the beef in question can't possibly be Gloucester cattle, look at the bone density of the carcass!'), John was weary and rank and about ready to swear off meat altogether.

Ah, the things we do for fiction.

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

🗣️ 🛏️ 💦 😚 💕

Play Writer Truth or Dare with me!

[docrotten]

TO THE DEVIL… A DAUGHTER (1976) – Episode 214 – Decades Of Horror 1970s

“It is not heresy … and I will not recant!” But if you don’t recant, you can’t have any pudding. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Bill Mulligan, Chad Hunt, and Jeff Mohr along with guest host Gregory Crosby – as they take a trip to Hammer-land for To the Devil… a Daughter (1976), the last horror film from the original incarnation of Hammer.

Decades of Horror 1970s Episode 214 – To the Devil… a Daughter (1976)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Decades of Horror 1970s is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of the podcast and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

An American occult novelist battles to save the soul of a young girl from a group of Satanists – led by an excommunicated priest – who plan on using her as the representative of the Devil on Earth.

  Directed by: Peter Sykes

Writing Credits: Christopher Wicking (screenplay by) (as Chris Wicking); John Peacock (adaptation); Dennis Wheatley (from the novel by); Gerald Vaughan-Hughes (additional material) (uncredited)

Produced by: Roy Skeggs (producer)

Music by: Paul Glass

Cinematography by: David Watkin (director of photography)

Special Effects by: Les Bowie

Selected Cast:

Richard Widmark as John Verney

Christopher Lee as Father Michael Raynor

Honor Blackman as Anna Fountain

Denholm Elliott as Henry Beddows

Michael Goodliffe as George de Grass

Nastassja Kinski as Catherine Beddows

Eva Maria Meineke as Eveline de Grass

Anthony Valentine as David Kennedy

Derek Francis as Bishop

Izabella Telezynska as Margaret (as Isabella Telezynska)

Constantine Gregory as Kollde (as Constantin de Goguel)

Anna Bentinck as Isabel

Irene Prador as German Matron

Brian Wilde as Black Room Attendant

Petra Peters as Sister Helle

William Ridoutt as Airport Porter

Howard Goorney as Critic

Frances de la Tour as Salvation Army Major

Zoe Hendry as 1st Girl

Lindy Benson as 2nd Girl

Jo Peters as 3rd Girl

Bobby Sparrow as 4th Girl

Ed Devereaux as Reporter (uncredited)

Bill Horsley as Curator (uncredited)

Juba Kennerley as Man Entering Art Gallery (uncredited)

Alan Meacham as Guest at Book Launch (uncredited)

Peter Sykes as Man at Airport (uncredited)

It’s time to explore the final Hammer Horror film of the 1970s, To the Devil… a Daughter (1976). [Note: The mystery comedy film The Lady Vanishes (1979) would drop and… vanish… in 1979.] To the Devil… a Daughter has the reputation of putting the final nail into Hammer’s filmmaking coffin. The quality and success of Hammer productions spiraled throughout the decade as the landscape of horror films changed – especially after The Exorcist (1973). Surprisingly, the film is much better than how the Grue Crew remembers it and how its reputation proceeds it. That is, up until its abrupt and head-scratching ending and that strange devil puppet. If you know, you know. Check out what the Grue Crew thinks of the film directed by Peter Sykes and featuring Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark, and Nastassja Kinski.

At the time of this writing, To the Devil… a Daughter is available to stream from Peacock and PlutoTV as well as various PPV from Amazon and Fandango At Home. To the Devil… a Daughter is also available on physical media as a Blu-ray from SCREAM Factory.

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror two-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In two weeks, the next episode, chosen by Jeff, will be Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), an ABC Movie of the Week starring Kim Darby, Jim Hutton, William Demarest, and Barbara Anderson. Grue Believer Lone Wolf suggested this flick. Woot!

We want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1970s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com.

Check out this episode!

[guyteera]

Artist from the book

Josep Puig

Willem Kromhout

Karl Moser

Otto Wagner

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles Francis Ainsley

John Pollard Seddon

Cass Gilberd

Armas Lindgren

Alexandre Marcel

Daniel Hudson Burnham

Eliel Saarinen

Gerald Calloott Horsley

Bernard Maybeck

Michel De Klerk

Peder Nilhelm Jensen-klint

J Li Mathieu Lauweriks

Sigurd Lewerentz

Erich Mendelsohn

Ragnar Ostberg

Adolf Eibink

Poelzig

Ivar Tengbom

Joseph Vago

Gunnar Asplund

Joseph Marrast

Paul Groesch

Tony Garnier