Valentine maker's album (Jonathan King)
ca. 1865
Medium
Thick interior pages (45), Exterior cover dark green coated fabric
Classification
Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Richard Riddell, 1984
Accession Number
1984.1164.1829
Art Historical Context
Step into the sentimental world of Victorian romance with the *Valentine Maker's Album (Jonathan King)*, 1865. This charming ephemera piece, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Drawings and Prints Department, features 45 thick interior pages bound in a sturdy dark green coated fabric cover. Created anonymously but linked to Jonathan King, it served as a practical workbook for crafting valentines—those elaborate, heartfelt cards that blossomed in popularity during the 19th. In the mid-1800s, mass-produced valentines flooded the market, but handmade versions like those in this album showca...
About the Artist
Anonymous
In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...