Papercut Valentines – article

Three Centuries of Valentines Offer 12,000 Ways to Say ‘I Love You’

Look inside a vast collection of cards, from as early as the 1680s, featuring pop-ups, cutouts and Civil War soldiers. New York Times, article by Eve M. Kahn (pub. Feb. 13, 2018).

A cobweb Valentine from about 1845, part of the collection assembled by Nancy Rosin, pulls up into a cone shape. Credit: The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

Paper Valentines spanning three centuries of optimism about romance have been delivered to the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. The collection of about 12,000 cards was assembled over four decades by Nancy Rosin, a historian and collector in Franklin Lakes, N.J., whose family has donated it to the museum.

Mrs. Rosin spent up to thousands of dollars each for the Valentines, which were produced as early as the 1680s. Their motifs, aside from the expected hearts and Cupids, can seem unsentimental. Images of battlefield tents represented spaces where soldiers could carve out time to write to their sweethearts, and depictions of caged mice may symbolize a desire to keep beloveds captive.

“Love was expressed in so many ways,” said Mrs. Rosin, who also helps catalog valentines at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Inscriptions and names on the cards and envelopes sometimes make it possible to determine which correspondents ended up happily married and which broke up, said Mrs. Rosin. In some cases, she added, women would reject men who had spent too much money on elaborate Valentines.

A Civil War Valentine dated Feb. 14, 1863. The tent’s flaps open to reveal a soldier composing a love letter while envisioning his beloved.
A cobweb Valentine, probably British, circa 1830-60. A string lifts up the castle to reveal a mouse in a trap.
A card from about 1855 with a biting message: “I’ll get married but not to you.” It was created by Esther Howland, one of the most successful Valentine producers of the 19th century.
This German card from around 1900 folds open into a three-dimensional train.
A fraktur labyrinth, a style of Pennsylvania-German folk art, dated 1824. The pattern is designed as an endless knot, offered as a token of affection.
A satirical “vinegar” Valentine from America, ca. 1855.
Another fold-open card from the Civil War era: “Thoughts of Home.”
A devotional card made in Paris in the mid-1800s that reads, “Crown of sorrows, crown of glory.” The image is engraved on lace paper, with applied elements including die-cut and gilded scraps, tissue and dried flowers.
A British cut-paper Valentine card, made by Elizabeth Cobbold around 1810.
An Esther Howland card from about 1870.

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 14, 2018, Section C, Page 2 of the New York edition (New York Times) with the headline: Three Centuries Of Ways to Say ‘I Love You’.