Valentine card: P.14344-R-60

Titles

Valentine card

Maker(s)

Publisher: Unknown

Entities

• Valentine card

Categories

• Print
• Album

Description

A 4to-sized valentine on thin, white wove paper with an applied passion flower of twisted paper at the centre. An ornate, lithographed border design of basket-weave in gold and green ink (reminiscent of Coalbrookdale porcelain design - which is interesting considering that Glaisher was a reknowned collector of English and continental ceramics) and with yellow, pink and red hand colouring used for butterflies, flowers and a flaming torch and quiver of arrows. Yellow roses, printed and hand-coloured are pasted onto the paper at upper and lower centre. A hand-written inscription in blue ink: "Believe my heart will ever prove / faithful unto thee my love". At the centre is a hand-drawn roundel of gold ink with scalloped inner edge and radiating strokes around the outer edge. Inside the roundel, the applied passion flower is hand-coloured and constructed from twisted paper which can be pulled upwards into a 'raised' position. A similar flower can be seen applied to another valentine, P.14414-R-19. It is common for such a device to have revealed a message when untwisted, but this does not appear to be the case here. "85" inscribed in black ink at lower right followed by "13 /" in graphite [/ denotes shillings]. The inside pages are blank. An example of a similar applied flower can be seen at the Pinterest site of the National Valentine Collectors Association, in collaboration with the John Johnson Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/424393964866039892/. This card is in the collection of Nancy Rosin and is dated c. 1825. Certainly, the hand-drawn and hand-coloured elements make it possible that this Valentine is quite early in date, circa 1820s or 1830s. It is comparable in size and style to P.14344-R-61.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Dr J. W. L. Glaisher, 1928