Great War Christmas Lithograph by artist Oswald H. Birley 1917

BIRLEY, Oswald H. (1880–1952). Great War Christmas Lithograph with facsimile message of good wishes for 1918 from General Howe. [London, 1917].
 
Lithographic print, 190 × 230 mm, signed in the plate lower left O.H.B. 1917. The image depicts a British soldier in winter uniform. Incorporated within the design is a printed (facsimile) inscription: “Wishing you good fortune in 1918. J. Howe, General. Christmas 1917”. The sheet appears to have formed the front panel of a folding Christmas card or presentation piece, now detached; light evidence of former mounting. Very good. 
 
The verso bears a contemporary newspaper cutting of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Justice” (from The Times, 24 October 1918), neatly pasted in place, indicating later personal use as a commemorative or memorial object at the end of the war.
 
Oswald Birley was one of the leading British portraitists of the First World War, later President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and produced numerous images of the Great War.