Christmas card from the Charlot's (Jean and Dorothy) to an unknown recipient, bi-fold with Virgin and Child on front and personal annotations on back with a list of prints the recipient should receive (possibly the Met) 1930

This bi-fold Christmas card, with the Virgin and Child on the front, was sent by Jean and Dorothy Charlot to an unknown recipient. The image is a kind of navy blue, a simple woodcut, I imagine, maybe carved with a knife. The details are quite something, aren’t they? The patterning on Mary’s robe, those funny cloud puffs, and then Christ on the cross peeking out above? I wonder about the artist’s hand. Were they thinking of devotional images from the past? Or maybe folk art traditions? The back of the card has a list of prints. So, this was a gift between art lovers, a kind of exchange. It makes me think about the way we all learn from one another, echoing, revising. Isn't painting like that too? A constant conversation across time, each artist picking up where someone else left off, inspired, challenged, in dialogue with those who came before.