New! Christ Child – Young Jesus – Vintage Holy Card Reproduction – Catholic Art Print – Archival Quality

This is Bouasse-Lebel printing at its height, circa 1860. Eulalie Bouasse-Lebel (1809-1898) had started her business in 1845, as a single mother with two sons and no income. She moved her business to St. Sulpice Street, the address on the card, in 1847, which was the heart of the religious printing business in Paris. She sold the business to her two sons, Henri and Emile, in 1852.

That’s when the business name went from “Madame Bouasse, nee Lebel” to “Bouasse-Lebel.” This beautiful lithograph was printed after that. During thas time, they were letting the lithograph colors define the image. Their earlier cards had still used engraving lines to draw the picture and were colored in with lithography. By 1865, they had bought the Maison Basset holy card company, and the name of the company became, “Bouasse-Lebel Maison.” (source: udayton.edu)

We believe the beautiful child is Jesus, even though he’s among 19th Century furniture. He is prayerful and perfect-looking, so much so that he has a halo. But it would be weird, i.e., theologically wrong, for the artist to just canonize a random child. Further, the halo has a cross in it, which is reserved for Jesus.

We think they did that as a way of putting the child Jesus among us, in contemporary times, and giving us his companionship. He is the model of peaceful prayer, an ideal for us to follow. The French inscription can be translated as, “Prayer gets everything from God.” Amen. Peace be with you.

** IMPORTANT ** THE IMAGE IS SMALLER THAN THE PAPER! There is a blank border around the image. Approximately 0.5" wide for 5x7, 1.3" for 8.5x11, 1.6" for 11x14, and 1.75" for 13x17 and 16x20. For the two poster sizes, 18x24 and 24x36, we use 0.5" borders. We do this because the ratio of the rectangle of the art almost never matches the rectangle of the paper, and if it did happen to match one size, it would not match the others. Most fine art printers do this because otherwise they’d have to crop the art or distort it to make it fit the paper. The border looks good. It gives the picture a faux matted appearance.There is almost always a little more border either on the left-right sides, or the top-bottom, depending on whether the ratio of the art is wider or taller than the paper.

We make Archival Quality fine art prints:

– Acid-free paper

– Archival pigments

– Cardboard backer for sizes 11x14 and less.

– Above story of the art

– Enclosed in a tight-fitting, crystal-clear bag.

– Rated to last 200+ years without fading if kept dry and out of the direct sun.

Thanks for your interest!

+JMJ+

Sue & John

Lincoln, Nebraska

"In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art." – St. John Paul the Great.

“In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art.”

~ St. Pope John Paul II

Original image is out-of-copyright. Descriptive text and any image alterations (hence the whole new image) © by Sue Kouma Johnson – Classic Catholic Art.