Valentine card: P.14346-R-6

Titles

Valentine card

Maker(s)

Publisher: Unknown

Entities

• Valentine card

Categories

• Print
• Album

Description

Aquatint and etching with hand-colouring on 4to-sized embossed white wove paper. From 'The Despondent Lover' (or 'The Unrequited Love') series. The border is lightly embossed with a design of leaves and flowers with lines of verse etched above and below the central image: "In this recess my passion here let sway / To disappointment my heart's a prey / I cannot long these pangs endure / Despair alone will yeild [sic] a cure." An inner etched border with hand-colouring of a design featuring greyhounds, storks and birds carrying letters surrounds the central panel, which shows a young woman inside a loggia in an attitude of despair, a letter at her feet and a greyhound sitting alert on the right. The inside pages are blank. Compare with two examples of the same number of the series in the collection of the Museum of London, ID:34.170/1 and ID:34.170/698. The colours employed in the hand-colouring of the etched border in all three examples is almost identical, confirming that the artists were following a common guide for each print in the series, although the etched frames were probably completed by cultured amateurs. See also duplicate examples of the series in the Fitzwilliam collection. Frank Staff says of the series: 'The central picture of each shows a delightful aquatint, beautifully coloured and finished by hand. Although some of the scenes depict young ladies in grief, and one shows a jilted lover [presumably the subject of P.14346-R-6], not all of them are unhappy. ... The set numbers fourteen in all, which was recognised as the regular "valentine dozen".' The series was originally published in the 1830s, it is presumed, by Joseph Addenbrooke. However, according to Frank Staff: 'It has been noted that a set of this series is known on paper watermarked '1828', with Addenbrooke's name imprinted. Some time later, it seems likely that the plates came into someone else's possession, who filed off Addenbrooke's name from them and reprinted the entire series on un-watermarked paper. This could explain the plentiful supply still available and the comparatively worn state of the embossing on some copies.' See, Frank Staff, _The Valentine & Its Origins_, Lutterworth Press, London, 1969, figure 64, p. 60 and pp. 62-3. The Glaisher examples are on un-watermarked paper and without a maker's stamp and are most likely later reprints. The Museum of London holds examples of these prints, which are later reprints made by Jonathan King and they date them circa 1870-1885.

Legal notes

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