Valentine

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, the valentine demonstrates how new color-printing technologies allowed artists and publishers to produce affordable yet luxurious objects. The combination of bright hues, metallic highlights, and raised borders gave the card a jewel-like quality, transforming a simple paper greeting into a treasured keepsake. Such cards were often exchanged on February 14 and then tucked away in albums, preserving moments of personal sentiment. Today this delicate object, part of the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of prints and drawings, offers a window into both the history of popular graphic arts and the enduring appeal of heartfelt messages rendered with artistic care.

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...