Christmas Woman's Home Companion – Madonna and Child – Jessie Willcox Smith – December 1910 – Catholic Art Print – Archival Quality

Jessie Wilcox Smith was one of the most famous illustrators of her day, painting in a narrative style we now call the Golden Age of Illustration, one of our favorites. Smith painted covers for many of the major American magazine's in the first half of the 20th Century. She painted every cover of Good Housekeeping between 1917 and 1933. Before that, she painted covers for Woman's Home Companion for over twenty years, as well as decades of covers for Ladies' Home Journal, McClure's, Colliers, Harper's, and other large-circulation magazines. Occasionally in those days, magazines would publish Catholic-themed covers, mostly Madonna and Child paintings. In this one, Mary is nuzzling the beautiful baby Jesus. They are encircled by a deep Marian blue which many Catholics would recognize. We love Marian art, especially when it is beautiful, and this is one of our favorite paintings by Smith. The expression on Jesus's face is very dear, and even theological if you look at it closely. One of the