Valentine card: P.14346-R-13

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 gaps at upper and lower centre where the lines of verse have been etched: "My love, vain are words here to relate / The pleasures of a wedded state / With anxious eye here gaze / Mark the sweet composure of the bride / Thus in example let her be your guide / Unite with me to dwell in Hymen's maze." An inner etched border of female figures playing lyres, sheep and a bird in a cage surrounds the central panel which shows a couple leaving church. The inside pages are blank. P.14346-R-L5 is another example of this number from the series but is without a back paper. 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, not all of them are unhappy. In fact, ... one shows a bridal couple leaving a country church surrounded by their friends. [This describes P.14346-R-13]. 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