Christmas Puck

Gordon Ross's cover for the Christmas issue of Puck centers on a prettily rendered young woman in a large red-and-green hat, half-submerged in a spray of mistletoe branches heavy with white berries. Snow dots the night-blue background. The ornate Gothic title lettering—'Christmas' in red, 'Puck' in green—frames a small crowned Puck face peering from the capital P. At the base of the gilt border crouch two stout elves in pointed caps, rendered as broadly comic gnomes, a stock caricature convention of the period. The image carries no overt political argument; by 1910 Puck ran straight holiday covers alongside its satire. Ross's Art Nouveau draftsmanship is polished commercial illustration rather than editorial provocation.