Valentine
1876
Medium
White card stock with gilding; white card with embossed border; chromolithography, gold lithography
Dimensions
Interior card: Width: 2 1/8 in. (5.8 cm) Length: 3 1/8 in. (8.4 cm) Exterior card: 14 cm. x 18.2 cm
Classification
Ephemera|Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Richard Riddell, 1981
Accession Number
1981.1136.808
Tags
Art Historical Context
Kate Greenaway’s “Valentine” of 1876 is a charming example of Victorian ephemera, created at the height of the nineteenth-century craze for elaborate greeting cards. Greenaway, celebrated for her delicate watercolors of children in quaint costumes, brought the same gentle sentiment to this small printed token. The card’s imagery—boys and girls reading together beside doves—evokes innocence, affection, and the blossoming of young love, themes that resonated deeply with the era’s romantic ideals. Printed through chromolithography and accented with gold lithography on embossed white card stock, ...
About the Artist
Kate Greenaway · 1846–1901
Kate Greenaway (1846–1901) was a British artist and writer who became one of the most beloved children's book illustrators of the Victorian era and a significant influence on children's fashion and popular culture. Born Catherine Greenaway in Hoxton, London, she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Female School of Art, and began her career designing greeting cards and magazine il...