Valentine card: P.14418-R-46

Current Location: In storage

Titles

Valentine card

Maker(s)

Entities

Valentine card

Description

A white, lace-paper front mounted with a smaller panel of cameo-embossed white and silver lace-paper with an 18th-century proposal scene at lower centre; the male figure kneeling and kissing the hand of the female figure who holds a fan in her left hand. The figures are contained within an arbour of entwining scrolls, roses and birds of paradise which extends upwards around a circular panel at upper centre. A glazed rectangular chromolithograph of a mountain goat and alpine flowers is positioned (rather clumsily) across the circular panel. The incongruously placed chromolithograph suggests that this valentine was probably hand-finished or adapted by the sender. At lower centre is a collage of hand-coloured, cut-paper leaves, bull-rushes and flowers with a small rectangle of lilac paper printed with the motto: 'Truly / Thine'. There appears to be losses to the collage at the left side. 'KERSHAW & SON' is stamped around the lower edge of the ciruclar panel at upper centre. The lace-paper front is adhered to the back paper. A hand-written inscription in graphite on the album leaf above: '1868', which is probably a transcription of a date found on the verso of the valentine prior to mounting into the album. The hand is recognisable as that of Miss Catherine Parsons and is seen in other albums throughout the collection, documenting and transcribing inscriptions, prices and maker's names. Catherine Parsons was a close friend of Glaisher towards the end of his life and undertook to arrange and mount his valentine collection into albums from the Autumn of 1924 through to the Summer of the following year and beyond.