As the 2022 festive season approaches, the usual quest for appropriate Christmas cards gets under way, and, yes – you can find some such cards using designs by Margaret Agnes Rope.
They are published and printed by the Carmelite convent at Quidenham, which houses the community of nuns of which Marga was a member (as Sister Margaret Of The Mother Of God) between 1923 and her death in 1953. The nuns at Quidenham still honour her memory.

Curiously, only one of the eight Marga Christmas cards printed by Quidenham is actually of a stained-glass window – the ‘Paris’ Nativity window. (This window was created in the 1930s by her, and, after some moves, was eventually installed in Quidenham Chapel).

The designs on the other cards were originally simply private seasonal cards specifically made by Marga for a limited circulation, ie among her sister nuns.
One in this series of cards features the early sketch that Marga made for that ‘Paris’ Nativity window (see pic, below), though, currently (2022) it has sold out.

Arts & Crafts

Marga designed many illustrated cards in her lifetime, but these should not be seen just as the casual works of a quiet moment. In fact, these ‘minor works’ reflect the Arts & Crafts ethos she learnt as a student: an ethos which called on artists to be pluri-disciplinary craftspeople, and to experiment with different media. For example, her ‘Bethlehem’ card (see below, currently (2022) sold out) is an example of a very innovative approach to the City Of God motif she depicted so often elsewhere but one that would not have worked in glass.

Crib

The last two of the Quidenham-printed cards are actually photographs. These show the life-size painted Nativity figures put together and created by Marga for the private Christmas services at Quidenham.

You’ll find details of the cards, and their prices, on the Quidenham website:
Shepherds Adoring (Midi 2) ; Come and Adore (Midi 48);  Margaret Rope Crib Figures 2 (Midi 47); Journey of The Magi (Midi 17); Midwinter Madonna (The Word was made Flesh) / Paris Window (Classic 63); Nativity Scene from St Mary’s Shrewsbury (Classic 94).
Two cards have sold out and aren’t currently available: Bethlehem (Classic 75);  Midwinter Madonna / Paris Window sketch (Midi 37)

In the archives

Of course, there are many more card designs by Marga, most of which are lying neglected in her unresearched papers. She seems to have enjoyed the private pleasure of creating and making cards for friends & family.

One of the most exciting aspects of recent news – ie that Marga’s papers are being transferred to a new, custom-built archives room – is that scholars will at last be able to sift through the documents properly. They will probably find many more previously unknown drawings by her, including designs for cards.

One card that we are already aware of, and believe that the original will be there somewhere in the papers, is her World War Two Christmas card, which shows a soldier, sailor and airman approaching the Christmas stable (see below).
This card was also created for the community of her fellow nuns.  You can see the evidence for this belief in the words inscribed across the snow ‘Carmel  Rushmere  Suffolk‘.  Her Carmelite community was then based in the Suffolk town of Rushmere – before moving to Quidenham Monastery in 1948.

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THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2017. LAST UPDATED DEC 2022

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