Since 1957, Australia Post has issued Christmas stamps every year, with more than 100 individual stamp designs created to send mail throughout Australia and overseas.
 
As is customary with Australia Post Christmas stamp issues, this year’s issue reflects aspects of the traditional Christmas story across three stamp designs. 
 
Award-winning illustrator and portrait painter Anne Spudvilas depicted three scenes from the story surrounding Christ’s birth: the baby Jesus in the arms of the Virgin Mary, a wise man, or Magus, cradling a vessel of frankincense in his hands, and a young shepherd boy.
 
The Stamps
 
45c Virgin and child
This stamp design is based on the divine conception and birth of the baby Jesus. Mary’s downcast eyes rest on the swaddled child in her arms, and her expression emanates love for the newborn king, as he is described in Matthew 2. Mary’s classic beauty and calm expression reflect the depth of her spiritual life, and the blue robe she wears symbolises her virtue, devotion and love. 
 
50c Wise man
This design depicts one of the three wise men, or Magi, who came from the East and travelled to Bethlehem to worship the newborn child, bringing him precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. This Magus cradles a vessel of frankincense in his hands – an aromatic gum resin that symbolises the child’s divinity. He is guided in his journey to Bethlehem by the star that shines behind him. 
 
$1.05 Shepherd boy
This stamp design depicts a shepherd boy bathed in the holy light of the Angel of Annunciation, who brought tidings of the birth of the child Saviour. In the traditional Christmas story, following the birth of the baby Jesus an angel appeared to a group of shepherds tending their flock in the fields near Bethlehem. The angel told them: “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
 
About the Artist

Anne Spudvilas is a portrait painter who works predominantly in oils, a medium that gives richness to the colour of the canvas and texture to its surface. One of the strengths of Anne’s work lies in her ability to capture the essence of her subjects through their carefully rendered expressions. 
 
In the three works comprising this year’s Christmas issue, the quiet, pensive expressions of her subjects combined with the gentle illuminating light convey a sense of reverence and spirit of this Christian story. 
 
Anne has had a passion for figure drawing since childhood, and her interest in painting portraits is a natural extension of this early focus on the human form. Her portraits have twice been entered in the prestigious Archibald Prize, Australia’s oldest and best-known prize for portrait painting; in 1998 her portrait of Felicity Kennett, the wife of then Victorian state premier Jeff Kennett, was hung and in 2000 she was a finalist for her painting of friend and fellow artist Leigh Hobbs. 
 
A further testament to her excellence in portrait painting, Anne’s work has been selected twice for the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and three times for the Portia Geach Memorial Portrait Prize. She has completed public commissions for the City of Melbourne and the Victorian state government and her work is held in collections in Australia, Europe, Asia and the USA.
 
Besides portrait painting, Anne is an illustrator of books for children and young adults and she also works as a courtroom artist. She has garnered wide acclaim for her published work, winning the Crichton Award for Illustration and two prestigious Children’s Book Council Picture Book awards.
 
2006 Christmas Stamps & Products:

Photographs form the references from which Anne works, so her selection of models and art-direction are intrinsic to the paintings. 
 
Anne’s intimate images of the Madonna and child, shepherd boy and Magus, depict these subjects as “real” people – as is tradition in portrait painting. 
 
The warm light in which the subjects are bathed highlights the theme of the adoration of the newborn king. The colours featured in the paintings reflect the palette traditionally associated with Christmas.  
 
Numerous coats of transparent glaze were applied to the paintings to give them luminosity and brilliance.
 
2006 Christmas Stamp products include:
 

• Click on thumbnail below to download high-res image of stamp