Valentine card: P.14414-R-99

Titles

Valentine card

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Gilks, Edward
Designer: attributed to

Entities

• Valentine card

Categories

• Print
• Album

Description

Design for a valentine on white wove paper. A sketch in watercolour and bodycolour with lithography; a hand-painted border in watercolour and bodycolour with a buff-coloured background and white scrolls surrounds two lithographed roundels containing hand-coloured scenes; a landscape and a male figure in costume with a winged fairy. Below are two oval medallions containing lithographed verse: 'Sick at heart and weary / I have wandered long / In life's forest dreary, / Thorns and briars among ....'. The verse references the poem _Endymion_ (1818) by John Keats. Although unsigned, this design is almost certainly by British lithographer, Edward Gilks and is closely comparable with other designs by him contained in album P.14346-R. P.14346-R-39 is another valentine design by Gilks that is based on the Endymion myth. P.14414-R-99 is one of three designs for lithographed valentines from the same series by Gilks which are mounted across the same double page in album P.14414-R. All three display scrolling borders and two lozenges/medallions at lower centre containing verse. P.14414-R-99 is one of a number of designs for valentines by Gilks which are mounted together as a group in album P.14414-R. As Gilks emigrated to Australia in 1852, this design is most likely to have been produced either during Gilks's apprenticeship in London to Thomas Dean, between 1836-1843 or between 1844-1850 when he was in partnership with his brother Thomas, a wood-engraver, based at 4 Fenchurch Building, Fenchurch, London.

Legal notes

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