Jenny Nyström — Tummeliten with Red Umbrella, Winter Postcard

The word is written right on the bag: TUMMELITEN — the Swedish Tom Thumb, as whimsical and indestructible a fairy tale character as Scandinavia ever produced. Jenny Nyström shows him small but undaunted: green fur-trimmed coat, white-fur hood, red umbrella braced against the snowstorm while pigeons and doves wheel around the birdhouse on its tall pole above. The mood is playful and slightly wild, nothing like the cosy Christmas cards Nyström is better known for. A collectible illustration from a different corner of the Jenny Nyström collection.