Santa Claus in Camp (from "Harper's Weekly," vol. 7, p. 1)
Thomas Nast
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nast's image was published in the 1862 Christmas issue of Harper’s Weekly, during days filled with both trials for the Union and rising hope. Santa Claus has arrived by sleigh in a Union army camp to distribute gifts. This was the moment that Nast conceived and introduced our modern image of Santa Claus. Combining European traditions of St. Nicholas with folk images of elves from his native Germany, he created the jolly gift-giver now associated with Christmas that here offers cheer to soldiers far from home. He distributes boxes of necessities such as warm socks, copies of Harper's Weekly, and entertains the crowd with a jumping jack dangling from a noose, its chest lettered "Jeff" in reference to the Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In the background, soldiers chase an escaped hog, roast meat on a spit and play fairground games such as climbing a greased pole. This image on the title page of the journal was supported by a two-page spread within the journal that shows Santa visiting sleeping children in New York (see 33.35.26 and 29.88.4(8)).
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.