2-979-764 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Christmas Time" - painted by W. Hemsley, 1857. 'He volunteered, no doubt, with boyish bravado, to face the weather and steal - for nearly all the holly used at Christmas is stolen - the basketful of holly on his arm; and with his "comforter" over his mouth, and his trousers turned up to trudge through the snow...his spirits flag, and, instead of quickening his pace, we find him at last reduced to a halt, with the ruefully droll expression which Mr. Hemsley has so successfully caught. His naturally audacity is confessedly subdued in his pitifully knit brows, and he puffs, and blows, and inflates his cheeks to keep himself warm...We cannot, of course, reproduce all the merit of Mr. Hemsley's little picture, but, our Engraving being the same size as the original, we have had the better opportunity to do justice to the great point of the picture - the extremely humorous expression of the boy's face'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.