At Midpoint between the Old and the New
The Home Story-Book. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1857.
This allegorical image depicting the mid-point between the old and new year illustrates a whimsical poem that describes the Old Year as “mournful and wrinkled, decrepit and gray,” while the face of his rival New Year is “free from all fear”--while watchful Time, with his scythe knowingly points to the master clock that separates the two. This is a fine example of hand-colored wood engraving that graced higher end children’s books before the less expensive process of chromolithography was perfected after the Civil War.