Current Location: In storage
Titles
Valentine card
Maker(s)
Publisher:
S. Marks & Sons
Entities
Categories
Description
A comic valentine; A hand-coloured woodcut on thin cream wove paper of a grotesque woman wearing a pink and yellow dress with long yellow gloves but with a muscular neck, face and nose and hairy chin like a man. A printed verse in sloping script above and below: 'Dear friend since I know you're in want of a Wife, / I send you the portrait of Venus herself, / Posess her soft charms, & be happy for life, / For mind what I say, she has plenty of pelf, / She's lovely, & young, & I'm sure will be true, / And though I well know you're a rover so gay, / such rapturous pleasures she'll give unto you, / That from the dear angel you never can stray.'. At centre right is a faint, partial drawing in graphite of the head and nose of the figure. This appears to be of a later date and not by the artist's hand. On the verso is a tracing in pen and ink with graphite underdrawing of the printed image on the recto. A hand-written inscription above: "Mrs Britian / Mrs Britan ["a" altered to an "i"]". The verso drawing and inscription suggests that P.14345-R-5 belonged to the artist known as 'Brittain'. One of a group bought at a sale, the catalogue clipping affixed to the same album leaf: "749 - Original wash Valentine Drawings - A collection of 8 executed for Messrs. Marks & Co. by BRITTAIN ...". This group of valentines was bought in 1924 from the bookseller, R.S. Frampton who was based at "Walton House", 37 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, London, N4. The bookseller's catalogue (No. 35), with several lot descriptions cut from it, was found in boxes containing Glaisher's valentines. See P.14529-R. See also P.14345-R-3, P.14345-R-4 and P.14345-R-6 - P.14345-R-10, for the other valentines in this group. This valentine and seven preparatory drawings were probably produced for S. Marks & Sons, who specialised in comic valentines during the 1850s. The artist, 'Brittain' is unknown.
Legal notes
Bequeathed by Dr J. W. L. Glaisher, 1928
