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Christmas

Date1929

MediumEtching

Dimensionsplate: 13 1/4 × 10 15/16 in. (33.7 × 27.8 cm)
sheet: 16 13/16 × 14 9/16 in. (42.7 × 37 cm)

Credit LineGift of Dr. Charles Lee Reese, 1940

Object number1940-11.381

On View

Not on view

Label TextDuring the 1920s, a group of printmakers, including Tanner, focused on the landscape inspired by the work of William Blake and, particularly, Samuel Palmer. Tanner's post-war view of English village life was, like that of "The Ancients," born of nostalgia for the past. He wrote of this image:

"One night of perfect moonlight…I stood by the ancient market cross in Castle Combe…and drew the tall Flemish gables, the great barns, the inn, and the cross itself. I remember the snores of one of the sleepers coming from a mullioned and dripstoned window of a cottage nearby. It was an uncanny feeling, working through the small hours in the empty village where the moonlight lay in sheets of silver so bright and constant that we drew as easily as by day." (msf)