Valentine

Anonymous

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is a tiny folded, cameo-embossed card made of heavy paper, and unsigned. The embossed paper has a raised, cameo design of swirls and roses, rising above a pale gray background color. Applied to the front is a chromolithographed, moveable, die-cut scrap the same height as the card. It features a bouquet of flowers, with an angel emptying a cornucopia of rose petals, above two doves. Moving it downward reveals an image of a gold ring with ruby center, and within that area, the words, "In fond remembrance". Inside, is inserted a piece of paper, brightly chromolithographed in a colorful gothic pattern of red, yellow, pink, green, and purple. The white center is printed with a romantic verse.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art