Beloved by children and adults alike, snow globes can be miniature works of art, kitschy souvenirs, or anything in between. Celebrating the spirit of the holidays, the Postal Service captures the playful pleasure of Christmas snow globes on four new stamps.
Painting in oil, the artist created spherical snow globes featuring icons of the season: a snowman wearing a jaunty red-and-white scarf; Santa Claus on a rooftop preparing to climb down the chimney; a reindeer standing in a snowy forest; and a snowy tree decorated with colorful ornaments. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamps with original art by Gregory Manchess.
Per Wikipedia, “At the end of the 19th century the Austrian Erwin Perzy, a producer of surgical instruments, invented the so-called Schneekugel (snow globe) and got the first patent for it. Originally his goal was to develop an extra bright light source for use as a surgical lamp. As he tried to intensify the candlepower of a so-called Schusterkugel (a water-filled flask used to focus light since the Middle Ages) with particles made out of different materials for reflection purposes, the effect reminded him of snowfall. He then built his first scene globe. Because of the great demand, Perzy and his brother opened a shop in Vienna, where the production continues today as a family business exporting throughout the world. The material and methods used to make the particles for Perzy globes is a family production secret.”