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Postcard c1883 Victorian Trade Card Peabody's Dry Goods Salem Sleeping Child
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Pre-linen · 1883

Postcard c1883 Victorian Trade Card Peabody's Dry Goods Salem Sleeping Child

Salem, Massachusetts, USA1883Pre-linenFair-Good

A plump, golden-haired toddler dozes blissfully in a woodland glade — rabbits peering from the undergrowth, a small bottle and tin cup beside them, a toy whip curled in the grass — in this tenderly rendered chromolithograph trade card issued by Peabody's Dry and Fancy Goods Bazaar of Salem, Massachusetts, a charming artifact of an era when local merchants competed for customer loyalty with lavishly printed giveaway cards. Peabody's of Salem was a fixture of the Essex Street retail scene in the late nineteenth century, and cards like this one — perhaps tucked into a purchase for a customer named Hannah or Lydia — were treasured as miniature art objects in an age before color printing was common in the home. The lithographic quality is superb: the child's rosy cheeks and softly closed lids are rendered with almost painterly warmth, the woodland setting detailed with ferns, brambles, and dappled light. The reverse has sustained significant paper loss from album removal, with white adhesive residue remaining at corners and scattered across the surface, though the front retains strong, unfaded color.

$10.95
Fair-Good
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PC-01581 · Peabody's Dry and Fancy Goods Bazaar, Salem, MA
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