Christmas portraits after the masters: 25 paintings, 8 new portrait styles

Twenty-five Christmas paintings from 1834 to 1898, restored from their museum scans. Eight of them are now portrait styles: add a photo and step into the scene.

For a century, the painters of Europe and America painted Christmas as they lived it: candles on the tree, markets in the snow, families arriving by coach and children who could not sit still.

We have restored twenty-five of those paintings from their museum scans, and turned eight of them into new Christmas portrait styles. Upload a photo and our atelier paints you and the people you love into the scene, in the painter's own light. The rest are here to print, to frame or to send as a Christmas card.

Step into the painting

Each of these eight paintings is now a Fable portrait style. Upload a photo and our atelier paints you, your family or your partner into the scene, in the painter's own light and brushwork. The first preview is free, and you can try as many photos as you like before you choose.

We built each style from the painting itself, restored from its museum scan, so the portrait keeps the original's colours, its candlelight and its snow.

1. The Christmas Tree

Two children stand in the dark street and look up at a window glowing with the light of a Christmas tree.

August Heinrich Niedmann, The Christmas Tree, 1874. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Two children stand out in the cold and look up at a window full of candlelight, where a tree glows inside. Niedmann paints almost everything in shadow so that the warm window does all the work. As a portrait, it places your children, or the two of you, in that same golden light.

2. Christmas Eve

A small child in a white nightgown sits on the floor by candlelight and reaches toward a little decorated tree, a toy carriage with a doll beside her.

Friedrich Dürck, Christmas Eve, before 1884. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A child in a white nightgown sits on the floor by a single candle and reaches toward a tiny decorated tree, with a doll in a toy carriage beside her and apples and walnuts at her feet. The Munich painter Friedrich Dürck was loved for pictures of children, and this one has the hush of the moment before everyone else comes in.

3. A Christmas Carol

A red-haired woman in a gold patterned robe plays a long stringed instrument against a gilded background, a sprig of holly at its head.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A Christmas Carol, 1867. Private collection. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Rossetti's Christmas is not a scene but a song. A woman in a robe of gold and crimson plays an old stringed instrument, her face lifted as if she is listening, with a sprig of holly tied to its neck. As a portrait, it is the most glamorous style in the collection, and it suits a single sitter best.

4. Old Father Christmas

A white-bearded old man crowned with greenery raises a small glass of wine behind a table laden with fruit and a festive feast.

William Ewart Lockhart, Old Father Christmas, before 1900. The Hunterian, University of Glasgow. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Before Santa Claus took over, Britain had Father Christmas: an old man of feasting and good cheer, crowned with greenery. The Scottish painter William Ewart Lockhart seats him behind a table of grapes and oranges, raising a glass to the viewer. As a portrait, it gives the head of the family the place of honour at the feast.

Everyone around the table

Four of the new styles hold a crowd: a farmhouse supper, a coach arriving in the snow, carol singers at a chalet door and a Norwegian farm lit up for a party. They are made for a group photo, from a couple to three generations.

5. Christmas Eve Charity

A peasant family in a farmhouse share their Christmas Eve with a travelling beggar and his children while a man lights candles on a small tree.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Christmas Eve Charity, c. 1834. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A poor farming family shares its Christmas Eve with a beggar and his children who have come in from the cold, while a man lights the candles on a small tree for the barefoot children at his feet. Waldmüller, one of the great Viennese painters of his age, turns the Christmas story into something anyone could do: make room at the table. As a portrait, it holds a whole family.

6. Grandmamma's Christmas Visitors

A family in early nineteenth-century dress climb down from a holly-decked coach in the snow while a footman holds the door and a little dog waits.

George Adolphus Storey, Grandmamma's Christmas Visitors, 1873. Sheffield Museums. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A family arrives by coach for Christmas, dressed in the fashions of fifty years before. A young woman in a fur-trimmed coat steps down into the snow, children peer out of the holly-decked carriage and a little dog waits to greet them. Storey looks back to the Christmas of Dickens's childhood. As a portrait, it is the family coming home.

7. A Christmas Carol in Lucerne

Village carol singers and musicians with a glowing star on a pole gather at the porch of a snowy Swiss chalet while neighbours watch.

Hans Bachmann, A Christmas Carol in Lucerne, 1887. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Carol singers and village musicians gather at a snowy Swiss chalet, with violins, a horn and a double bass, while a glowing star is held high on a pole above them. The Swiss painter Hans Bachmann fills the porch with neighbours pouring drinks and children running up the hill to join in. As a portrait, it puts your family among the singers.

8. Christmas Party

A Norwegian farmhouse glows with lit windows on a snowy winter night while empty sleighs and a horse wait in the yard.

Lars Jorde, Christmas Party, 1895–96. Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A Norwegian farmhouse on a winter night, every window lit, with empty sleighs in the snow and a horse waiting by a lantern. Everyone is already inside. Lars Jorde paints the party from the cold yard, which is exactly what makes it feel so warm. As a portrait, it is the evening the family is all under one roof.

Out in the snow

Long before the shops, Christmas was bought at the market: fir trees, toys, gingerbread and candles, sold from stalls in the snow. These paintings come from Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Germany, and they look much like a Christmas market today. They are not portrait styles, but each can be printed or sent as a Christmas card.

9. Christmas Market

Two children wrapped in winter clothes stand at a market stall of small figurines, a little Christmas tree behind them and a dog at their feet.

Johann Matthias Ranftl, Christmas Market, 1845. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Two children, bundled up against the cold, gaze at a stall of tiny figurines, with a small decorated tree behind them and a dog at their feet. Ranftl was so good at animals that Vienna nicknamed him the Raphael of dogs, and this is the Christmas market as every child remembers it.

10. Selling Christmas Trees

Traders sell fir trees, baskets and winter vegetables in a snowy Danish city square while two children pull a small tree on a sled.

David Jacob Jacobsen, Selling Christmas Trees, before 1871. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Fir trees stand in bundles in a snowy Danish city square, among stalls of baskets and winter vegetables, while a boy and girl drag their own little tree home on a sled. The Danish painter David Jacob Jacobsen sets it all under a pale winter sky with a crescent moon already up.

11. Christmas Market

Crowds in winter coats browse toy stalls on wet cobblestones at night, lit by gas lamps, while a man carries a fir tree over his shoulder.

Georg Schöbel, Christmas Market, c. 1890–1891. Private collection. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A Christmas market after dark, lit by gas lamps and the glow of the stalls. A bearded trader holds out a tray of toys, a man carries a fir tree over his shoulder and children clutch their new treasures. Georg Schöbel paints the wet cobbles and the crush of coats so well that you can almost hear it.

12. The Christmas Fair

A couple in old-fashioned dress walk through a snowy fair carrying a small fir tree and toys, among timber houses and a bakery stall.

Georg von Rosen, The Christmas Fair, 1872. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

The Swedish painter Georg von Rosen set his Christmas fair centuries back in time. A couple walk out of it with their arms full, a little fir tree, a doll, a toy house and a hobby horse, past a bakery stall heaped with loaves. It is history painting with snow on its boots, and a reminder of how old the Christmas market already felt in 1872.

Fetched, carried and lit

The Christmas tree spread from Germany in the nineteenth century, and painters followed it from the forest to the drawing room. Here it is felled, carried home, lit on a royal table and finally surrounded by everything else that makes the day.

13. Before Christmas

A bearded man holding an axe and a freshly cut fir stands with a boy and his sled in a snowy pine wood, a hunting dog at their feet.

Franz Krüger, Before Christmas, before 1857. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A grandfather and a boy have come into the snowy pine wood for their tree. He holds the axe and the freshly cut fir, the boy waits with the sled, and the dog looks up at the branches. Franz Krüger was the Berlin court painter so famous for horses that the city called him Horse Krüger.

14. Felling the Christmas Tree

Boys in winter coats wait on a path of fallen leaves and light snow while men fell a young fir in a Danish wood of copper beech.

Hans Andersen Brendekilde, Felling the Christmas Tree, 1885. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A group heads into a Danish wood dusted with snow to fetch its tree. Brendekilde fills the scene with the copper leaves of the beeches and the dark green of the firs, and the boys waiting on the path give it the feeling of an expedition.

15. Queen Victoria's Christmas Tree

A tabletop Christmas tree hung with candles stands in a grand red room, surrounded by framed paintings and gifts.

William Corden the Younger, Queen Victoria's Christmas Tree, 1850–51. Royal Collection. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

This is the Queen's own tree, set on a table among presents as Prince Albert had known it in his German childhood. In 1848 a picture of the royal family round their tree at Windsor appeared in the Illustrated London News, and within a few years families everywhere wanted one.

16. Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family

A New York family gather in a wood-panelled parlour by the fire as the children play with a toy at a table draped in red.

Eastman Johnson, Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family, 1864. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A New York family gathers in its parlour by the fire while the children play with a new toy. William Tilden Blodgett, the father, would later help found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the picture now hangs. It was painted in 1864, in the middle of the Civil War, and its calm is almost defiant.

17. Christmas Still Life

Purple grapes spill from a glass dish beside peeled oranges and a sprig of red-berried holly on a white cloth.

Eloise Harriet Stannard, Christmas Still Life, 1886. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

No people at all, just the table: grapes spilling from a glass dish, oranges with one peeled open and a sprig of holly across the white cloth. Eloise Harriet Stannard, from a family of Norwich painters, was one of the finest still-life painters of Victorian England, and she makes every surface shine.

A quieter Christmas

Not every Christmas painting is a party. These are the walk to church, a winter afternoon, a lonely road and a supper far from home: Christmas as people kept it outdoors and alone, as well as together.

18. Churchgoers on Christmas Morning

A snowy village road with deep wheel tracks leads past thatched yellow cottages and a bare pollarded tree toward a distant church.

Hans Andersen Brendekilde, Churchgoers on Christmas Morning, 1898. Private collection. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Deep wheel tracks lead down a snowy village road, past thatched yellow cottages, to the church where small figures are already heading. Thirteen years after his tree-felling picture, Brendekilde paints Christmas morning in Denmark as bright, cold and perfectly still.

19. Christmas Day

A wide field of fresh snow under a low winter sun, with bare trees and village roofs on the horizon and small figures in the drifts.

William McTaggart, Christmas Day, 1898. Kirkcaldy Galleries. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

The Scottish painter William McTaggart called this picture of fresh snow simply Christmas Day. A wide white field runs to a line of bare trees and rooftops under a low sun, with small figures out in the drifts. The brushwork is so quick and loose it feels like breath on a cold window.

20. Winter Landscape, Christmas Eve

A woman in a heavy dark coat with a faint halo stands by a wooden fence on a snowy path, bare saplings behind her.

Fritz von Uhde, Winter Landscape, Christmas Eve, 1890. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A woman in a heavy dark coat walks a snowy path beside a fence, a bundle against her. Only the faint halo above her head tells you who she is: Mary on the way to Bethlehem, seeking shelter on a German winter evening. Fritz von Uhde was famous for setting the Bible among ordinary people of his own day.

21. Christmas Eve in Siberia

Men in heavy coats sit at a long table with a white cloth and a steaming samovar, each lost in thought.

Jacek Malczewski, Christmas Eve in Siberia, 1892. National Museum in Kraków. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Polish exiles sit down to their Christmas Eve supper far from home, round a long white table with a steaming samovar. No one talks. Malczewski returned again and again to the Poles sent to Siberia, and this is the loneliest Christmas in the story, and one of the most moving.

22. Roasting the Christmas Beef in a Cavalry Camp

Cavalrymen in dark shirts and striped trousers gather round a smoking campfire among white tents on a dry plain.

Frederic Remington, Roasting the Christmas Beef in a Cavalry Camp, c. 1892. Yale University Art Gallery. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

No snow and no tree, but it is still Christmas dinner. Cavalrymen and their scout gather round a campfire on the dry plains to roast the Christmas beef, with their white tents and horses behind. Frederic Remington, the great painter of the American West, travelled with the cavalry and knew these camps first-hand.

Who brings the presents

Every country had its own Christmas visitor. Norway fed a goblin, France sent a winged child, and America was busy inventing Santa Claus and his reindeer. Painters loved them all.

23. Goblin with Christmas Porridge

A small figure in a red cap sits in the snow beside a steaming black pot outside a wooden farm building.

Edvard Munch, Goblin with Christmas Porridge, 1881. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Long before The Scream, a seventeen-year-old Edvard Munch painted the nisse, the little farm goblin of Norwegian folklore, crouched over his Christmas porridge. Families left him a bowl on Christmas Eve; forget, and he would play tricks all year.

24. Christmas Delivery

A winged child rides a bicycle through a starry night sky over a snowy village, laden with toys and trailing light.

José Frappa, Christmas Delivery, 1894–95. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

A winged child pedals across the night sky with an armful of toys, a trail of light behind the bicycle. In the 1890s the bicycle was the newest wonder in the world, and Frappa simply gave it to the bringer of Christmas gifts. It is the most cheerful picture here.

25. Santa Claus

Santa Claus in a sleigh pulled by leaping reindeer flies through a misty night sky over the chimneys of a sleeping town.

William Holbrook Beard, Santa Claus, 1862. RISD Museum, Providence. Prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Santa's sleigh and reindeer race through a misty night over the chimneys of a sleeping town, and a toy tumbles down toward one of them. The poem we know as 'Twas the Night Before Christmas had given him his reindeer in 1823; William Holbrook Beard painted the flight in oils almost forty years later.

Questions about Christmas portraits

How do I get a Christmas portrait in the style of a famous painting?

Choose one of the eight portrait styles in this story, tap Create your portrait in this style and add a photo. Our atelier paints you into the scene, keeping the original painting's light and colours. The first preview is free.

Which photo works best?

A clear, well-lit photo where everyone's face can be seen. For the family styles, such as Christmas Eve Charity or A Christmas Carol in Lucerne, a group photo works best; for A Christmas Carol, a single portrait.

Can I buy the original paintings as prints?

Yes. All twenty-five paintings are restored from museum scans and can be ordered as fine-art prints or canvas, or sent as a Christmas card from Fable Cards.

Are these paintings in the public domain?

Yes. Every painter in this story died more than a century ago, and each work is restored and prepared for print by Surrealium at Vaxholm Fortress, Sweden.

Every painting in this story is restored from its museum scan and printed to order. The eight portrait styles are on our Christmas shelf, and the first preview of each is free. To see how paintings like these became the first Christmas cards, read the history of the Christmas card.