Altar of Hymen: P.14432-R

Titles

Altar of Hymen
Valentine card

Maker(s)

Publisher: Unknown

Entities

• Valentine card

Categories

• Print

Description

A framed valentine. We know from letters written by Glaisher to Catherine Parsons that she encouraged him to frame at least one of his valentines (Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 939-1985, 12th April 1925, letter to Miss Catherine Parsons: 'I quite agree about the Acton one in its box & about framing the pearl one …'.) and P.14431-R is one of four framed valentines in the Glaisher bequest. However, an inscription on the backboard of the frame with initials 'R.S.F.' may indicate that this valentine was bought from the bookseller, R.S. Frampton, who was a regular supplier of valentines to Glaisher during the 1920s. It is one of the earliest valentines in Glaisher's collection with only two others - P.14410-R-14 and P.14410-R-25 - on watermarked paper dated 1811. A hand-coloured wood engraving on a single sheet of wove paper. A central scene within a border of a couple standing outside clasping hands before a plinth inscribed 'Altar of Hymen', the half-draped figure of Hymen holding a flaming torch and standing on top, and a church in the background on the right. Gold tinsel sequins are affixed around the border. A verse is printed above and below the image: 'It's not the glittering toys of life / That now my mind employs, / There is a something in my breast / That better hope enjoys / Through life I'd wish to find a friend / Whose heart was chaste and true; / What happiness then this would be / Could I find these in you. / In you, I say, yes sure it is, / Whose heart's so frank and free, / So let me be your Valentine / Then happy I shall be.'. The valentine is folded back along left and right edges and glued to a secondary support of white card. A handwritten inscription in graphite (almost certainly in Glaisher's own hand) at upper centre of the secondary support: 'TOP / Watermarked on edge / of Valentine / L Tovill [sic] Mill 1811'. The watermark seems to have been incorrectly transcribed, and should read 'Tovil' rather than 'Tovill'.

Legal notes

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