Current Location: In storage
Titles
Valentine card
Maker(s)
Publisher:
Stevens, Thomas
Entities
Categories
Description
A woven silk sachet (originally perfumed) with silvered lace-paper border and embossed chromolithographed scraps of flower garlands affixed around the central panel. A chromolithographed scrap with motto: "Love's Offering" affixed at lower centre. The embroidered panel, known as a Stevengraph, shows the steam locomotive 'Lord Howe' with two carriages. On the verso, the sachet is covered with silvered lace-paper and a central oval panel decorated with a chromolithographed scrap of a rose bouquet. This valentine relates to a letter found loose within Glaisher's valentine collection which was sent to Glaisher from 'J.C. Acton' in 1925. See Valentinesarchive1. The letter lists eight valentines with prices that were sent to Glaisher on approval, including one described as 'Railway train'. This Stevengraph sachet valentine is almost certainly the valentine listed as such in Miss Acton's letter to Glaisher. See also [?], which is a mounted Stevengraph of the same railway train, 'Lord Howe', entitled _The Present Time / 60 Miles an Hour_. Glaisher seems to have kept at least three of the other valentines from this group, including _Cupid's Dream_ , P.14383-R, the boxed valentine, P.14563-R, which is inscribed in Glaisher's hand, 'Miss Acton's valentine' and P.14384-R, which is the jewelled valentine. J.C. Acton was one of the daughters of the Brighton-based dealer, Walter Acton from whom Glaisher procured many of the valentines in his collection. The Actons sent Glaisher valentines on approval and he also visited their shop during trips to Brighton. One of the Misses Acton, presumably J.C. Acton, had her own collection of valentines of which Glaisher was very envious and from which he persuaded her to sell him some: 'I got her even to take one out of her album.'. See Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 892-1985, 14 September, 1924, letter to Miss Catherine Parsons (written on headed notepaper from The Grand Hotel, Brighton). P.14366-R was included in the exhibition of valentine cards, _For ever thine: the nineteenth century valentine_, held in the Charrington Print Room at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1995, no. 58. This valentine was one of 12 included in the exhibition about J.W.L. Glaisher as collector, _James Whitbread Lee Glaisher ScD, FRS (1848-1928) Mathematician and Collector_, held in the Octagon Gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1999, Case 9. The selection repeated that of the 1995 exhibition.
Legal notes
Bequeathed by Dr J. W. L. Glaisher, 1928
