Victorian Christmas Child Die-Cut with Doll & Toys

A small figure with impossibly rosy cheeks and an unsettling stare stands in a fur-trimmed red coat, matching hat, and sturdy brown boots—the energy of a tiny department store Santa who has seen things. He clutches a small mustachioed doll in a yellow outfit like it's evidence in a crime, presenting it to the viewer with the solemn gravity of a man filing his taxes. The chromolithography renders his skin in that particular shade of 'aggressively healthy' that Victorian illustrators mistook for charming, and the doll, with its little red cap and outstretched arms, appears to be either celebrating or desperately trying to escape. Together they form a duo with the combined vibe of a ventriloquist act that nobody asked for.