Book Illustration, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Eighth Day of Christmas

Ilonka Karasz, a designer and illustrator who emigrated from Hungary to settle in New York in 1913, is known for her distinctive modern designs for furniture, textiles, wallcoverings, silver, and ceramics. Karasz also illustrated 186 covers for the New Yorker as well as book jackets and children’s stories, including this 1949 edition of The Twelve Days of Christmas. The Twelve Days of Christmas, a holiday carol with cumulative stanzas, was first published in England in 1780. The AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artists) called the work “One of the most beautiful books of the year,” noting that “Ilonka Karasz has set the verses of that lovely old carol against twelve pictures which combine modern technique with the exuberance of the medieval tradition. . . It is a miracle of design and imagination.”