This engraving was published in a journal called Echoes from the Clubs. It depicts the contrasting experience of Christmas for Londoners living in wealth and poverty. Entitled 'Christmas! In the East; In the West' a wealthy family celebrates Christmas in west London with a lavish feast whilst a destitute poor family in an east London slum barely survive the festive season.
These sort of companion engravings helped to raise public awareness of social deprivation.
The painter Vincent Van Gogh considered the graphic illustrators to be great social commentators and artists. He wrote that they were to 'art what Dickens is to literature.'
