As promised, here is a short presentation of Jenny Nyström. She is the Queen of the Swedish tomte, the gnome that delivers the Christmas presents and just slightly resembles the Anglo-American Santa Claus. When Nyström created this character she was influenced by the folklore house gnome, that took care of a household if the family treated him nice — otherwise, things turned bad. This figure was grey, almost invisible and quite moody, if not plain angry. Nyström infused him with the Santa Clauses of Germany, Netherlands and Britain, and also with porcelain garden gnomes from Germany and Italy. So, on Christmas Eve it is this small, colorful and cheerful tomte that delivers presents to Swedish kids of all ages. He loves animals of all kinds, plays with children and help with the decorations. He works with many other tomtar, as they live together in large (mostly male) communities.

Jenny Nyström's tomte became popular nationwide since her illustrations were common in the new media of Christmas magazines for children at the turn of the century 1900. She did about 250 covers of different magazines. Today she is most famous for her Christmas cards, and from her first originals in 1898 until her death in 1946 she is believed to have made c. 3000 original paintings for these postcards. No wonder she made us believe!

In the next issue of RIG (2013:4) due in mid-January, you can read more about visual representations of Christmas celebrations in my peer-reviewed (Swedish) article: "Julfirandets ideologi och genus i svensk bildkonst från sekelskiftet 1900: Elsa Beskow, Carl Larsson och Jenny Nyström"(Ideology and gender of Christmas celebrations in Swedish art from turn of the century 1900).

With that I wish you all a Mary Christmas with a Nativity scene from the baptismal font of Grötlingbo church in Gotland. I will be back with new posts in the new year.