St. Joseph from a Trade Card (TC 01) Ceramic Tree Decoration

Trade cards are a kind of early business card. Originally, they were printed only with text; later, pictures were added. In the late 19th-early 20th century, religious images appeared on trade cards alongside images of animals, vegetables, and minerals; historical figures and monuments; flowers and sundry other items or events. Trade cards were handed out as marketing tools or packaged as prizes with pharmaceuticals and candies as well as perfumes, meat products, tapioca pudding, and more. With an advert on the back and, more importantly, a vibrant image printed in chromolithography on the front, small wonder collecting trade cards became a hobby in the 19th century much like collecting bubblegum- and baseball trading cards would become later in the 20th. + One of the most popular sets of religious trade cards valued even by collectors today consists of twenty-four patron saints of professions. On such trade cards, a framed portrait of the patron saint is flanked by a representation of the relative tradesmen going about their tasks. Space permitting, the saint’s bio might even be printed on the back. + Though printed in Paris to advertise ‘Star Tapioca’ (Tapioca de L’Étoile), the St. Joseph in this example is clearly a variant of the aged St. Joseph, Patron of The Church, published as a devotional print by the Socièté de St. Augustin of Bruges, Belgium. (See our SAU 035 COLLECTION.) In fact, many of the saints in this series rely on Socièté de St. Augustin prototypes. In a less litigious age, the production of such derivative works was not uncommon. Not visible here are the carpenters (charpentiers) and slate-quarriers (ardoisiers) who labour under St. Joseph’s patronage. + In an ornate frame against a patterned backdrop of red and golden yellow, St. Joseph is clad in a yellow robe and green mantle. His hair has gone white. He holds an L-shaped carpenter’s rule emblematic of his profession in his right hand. In his left, instead of the more usual spray of white lilies of purity in full bloom, he holds a leafless stem of pink flowers that may be intended to represent spikenard. Spikenard is another flower associated with St. Joseph especially in Spanish-speaking countries. Given its funerary associations—spikenard was used in antiquity to anoint the dead—the flower may allude to St. Joseph’s approaching demise. In addition to his patronage of The Church and of artisans, St. Joseph is patron saint of the dying. He is invoked by the faithful for a happy and holy death. + Principal Feast: March 19; Feast of St. Joseph the Worker: May 1 + Image Credit (TC 01): St. Joseph, detail from an antique trade card in chromolithography, originally published by E. Pelletier & Cie, Paris, France, for Tapioca de L’Étoile, early 1900s, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.