antiques INDEX


Love is in the air St Valentine’s Day may now be as commercial as


Christmas but it too is a celebration with a long history Words Jennie Buist Brown


red hearts, red roses and heart-adorned soft toys. From simple designs to huge cushioned monstrosities the shelves of card shops will this month be heavy with romantic rhetoric. Some things, it seems, just cannot be said in an email! February 14th is of course


T


Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate those we love and, although the day may now be as commercial as Christmas, it too is a celebration with a long history. Valentine’s Day has its roots in an ancient Roman fertility festival, which took place each year on this day. The Catholic Church in the fi fth century adapted this same date as the feast of Saint Valentine and it seems likely that he was a priest in Rome who performed weddings in defi ance of a ban on marriage imposed by the Roman Emperor Claudius – apparently he thought that bachelors made better soldiers.


But it took another thousand


years before people began to associate love with Saint Valentine’s Day. And for that we can thank the poet Geoffrey Chaucer who, in 1382, wrote about February 14th: “For this was Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.” Over the next four centuries, Saint


Valentine, as well as the date, became more 88


his month love is defi nitely in the air. Visit any newsagent, card, gift or fl ower shop and you’ll be assaulted by the sight of


and more entwined with the concepts of courtly love and romantic poetry. The trend was popular throughout


Europe, but Britain really ran with the idea, and lovers in the late 1700s would exchange sentimental verses on this day. In 1797, a book entitled The Young Man’s Valentine Writer was published to help frustrated would-be suitors. Victorian


the practice of mailing notes. This also allowed “secret admirers” to send racy verses or limericks via post. But it was under the reign of wildly


romantic and sentimental Queen Victoria that Valentine’s Day exploded in popularity. By the mid-1800s “fancy” Valentine’s adorned with real lace, paper lace, and ribbons were assembled in factories as £1 billion a year was spent on Valentine’s gifts like cards, fl owers, and chocolates.


In London, Raphael Tuck’s company – with its Royal Warrant of Appointment from Queen Victoria herself – was perhaps the most esteemed paper company at the turn- of-the-century, producing greeting cards, paper dolls and toys and children’s books. Tuck’s most successful Valentine’s


were the “marionette” cards – featuring paper dolls with arms and legs that moved – and the “hidden honeycomb” cards with 3D hearts that opened up like a honeycomb when the card was unfolded. Everyone it seemed loved


Valentine’s cards and even the turn of the century Suffragettes jumped on the opportunity to trumpet their cause for the right of women to vote through the tokens, while opponents spread their message via the same


publishers even began to put out limited numbers of “mechanical Valentine’s” printed with poems and drawings, as a decline in postal rates encouraged


medium.


Many Victorian cards are still available to collect, although they are certainly more diffi cult to fi nd in good condition. Fine


www.indexmagazine.co.uk getting married? – www.planningyourwedding.co.uk


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