Christmas and the Sentimental Pleasures of the Middle-Class HomeAptly portrayed in this sentimental painting by English genre artist Walter Dendy Sadler, the Victorian Christmas celebrated the family values and lifestyles of the middle classes at their most expressive. His clichéd portrait of a wealthy middle-class family holiday — with holly adorning the walls, mistletoe hanging above the fireplace, children singing carols with their parents, and contented grandparents sitting by a warm fire — captures the intimacy and love that increasingly bound together middle-class and working-class families alike during the nineteenth century. Titled Home Sweet Home and released for commercial reproduction and sale around 1900, prints of this image of domestic bliss no doubt adorned the walls of many middle-class parlors like the one shown in the painting. (Private Collection/Photo © Christie’s Images/The Bridgeman Art Library)