Valentine card: P.14346-R-35

Titles

Valentine card

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Gilks, Edward

Entities

• Valentine card

Categories

• Print
• Album

Description

A hand-coloured lithograph on one sheet of white wove paper (backing sheet lost). A scene showing Cupid carrying a flaming torch aloft beside a couple receiving a garland offered by a putti hovering above. A circular temple on a hill beyond surrounded by flying putti and garlands of pink roses. A printed verse by Keats inside two medallions of blank paper set within the scene: "Love! / thou are leading / me from wintry cold. / Lady! / thou leadest me / to summer's clime. ... Keats". The verse is from Keats's poem of 1818, _Isabella and the Pot of Basil: A Story from Boccaccio_ Canto IX. Use of gold paint in places. A lithographed rectangular border is drawn around the scene, which is very faint in places. From a series. Although this print is unsigned, the printmaker is most likely Edward Gilks (circa 1822 - after 1886), as the style of the lithograph is very similar to that seen in P.14346-R-36 and others which are signed by Gilks and mounted consecutively in the album. The lack of artist's signature on this print (all other prints mounted in the album from this series are signed, except for P.14346-R-40, which is out of register) and the hesitant border around it, suggest that P.14346-35 is probably a proof or trial print of some description. As Gilks emigrated to Australia in 1852, this lithograph is most likely either to have been produced during Gilks's apprenticeship in London to Thomas Dean, between 1836-1843 or prior to 1852. From a series of lithographed valentines and valentine designs by Gilks mounted together in album P.14346-R. Other valentine designs by Gilks are contained in album P.14414-R.

Legal notes

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