Puck Christmas

A woman in a deep-blue coat and feathered hat glides forward on skates, coat flaring, while Puck braces behind her and pushes and a bundled child skates off to the right. Bare trees and a pale winter sky fill the background; the whole is set inside a dense green-and-gold ornamental border. Frank Nankivell catches the forward lean and the swirl of skirts that make the motion read at a glance. PUCK sits at the top, CHRISTMAS 1899 at the lower right in gold. The sprite as the unseen engine of a lady's pleasures is a recurring Puck conceit, and the winter setting gave the colorists a cool register of blues and grays to balance the hot holiday reds elsewhere on the newsstand.