History of Christmas Cards
Pioneer Printers
Page Four BMarcus Ward & Company
Kate Greenaway was probably the greatest artist of children in her time. She designed many Valentine and Christmas cards with young children in period dress, faries, sprites, gnomes, flowers, or landscapes. The children she illustrated were dressed in her own designs of Georgian and Regency fashions. These dresses were later used by Liberty of London as designs for Victorian children's clothes. Even other publishers tried to imitate her designs. Greenaway designed cards for Marcus Ward from about 1871 to 1877. She left Marcus Ward and Co after only six years because she was refused the return of her original artwork after the reproduction process was completed. In 1894 it was written that "'This firm for a while monopolised the whole of the better-class trade" and that "they stood without rival". The Marcus Ward and Co. card displayed above has a design that can only be one of Kate Greenaway's. By the 1880's Marcus Ward and Co cutback on its commissions to quality artists. The company started to import cheap products from Germany. This was a universal trend in the industry, and quality minded people lost interest in Christmas cards. The company struggled through the 1890s and finally went into dissolution in 1899. View more Marcus Ward and Co cards BY CLICKING HERE |
Marcus Ward and Company (Belfast, Ireland) was a colour printing and publishing company known for it's
high quality of decorative excellence in Christmas Cards production during the Victorian period. The company
was one of the most successful publishers of cards during the heyday of the Christmas card's popularity in the
mid 1800's. In 1867 the company opened an office and showroom in London. At first they would import "chromos"
from Germany and mount them on cards trimmed with gold and other colors. But under its art director,
Other notable card designers for Marcus Ward and Co were Thomas Goodman, Moyr Smith,
Robert Dudley, T. Walter Wilson, Henry Ryland, Alfred Ward, Patty Townshend, Edwin J. Ellis, S.T. Dodd,
H. Stacy Marks, A. M. Lockyer, and Fred Miller. Marcus Ward and Co's designs held closer to the classical
Christmas card than did most other English publishers in the 1870's and 1880's.