These colorful chromolithographs from Raphael Tuck & Sons are part of a 193 piece collection of color prints and clippings collected for scrapbooking during the late 19th and early 20 century. As hinted at in the bottom two examples, these shaped prints were sold in sheets connected by little paper tabs. While this post features children, other common subjects included insects, animals, flowers, story book characters, costumes, and Christmas.
Raphael Tuck, a Prussian immigrant, founded his printing company in 1866 in England. At first the business focused on selling art reproductions, but soon expanded to postcards, paper toys, children’s books, and Christmas cards. In the early 1900s, as postcards continued to grow in popularity, the company held multiple contests for postcard designs open to the general public. Much of the company’s color printing was done in Germany, even into the 20th century. The company’s English headquarters were destroyed during the Blitz, and the business never fully recovered, combining with two other companies in 1959 to form the British Printing Corporation.
inktober day 6, “husky.” featuring day 7, “enchanted,” day 8, “frail” (a very sensitive boi who majored in poetry and is scared of stairs), day 9, “swing,” day 10, “pattern,” day 11, “snow,” and day 13, “ash.” at the bottom is day 12, “dragon,” an absolute unit of a dragonslayer plus some accessories, dragon sold separately x
