Card, valentine card

Sample valentine's card (comprising a sheet of white lace paper embossed with a border design of two trees flanking a centrally applied silk panel handpainted with a sailing boat at sea. The deck and galley of the boat is formed from applied, handcoloured paper, each of the 10 paper windows opens to reveal a sailor's face painted below.

Inside the card the stationer Jonathan King has written: 'Painted by Ross who married a woman who sold walking sticks in the gutter & could not read or w living about Yourk [sic] Rd or Agar towns. He brought this pattern in to show me I did not like the combination of ship & trees & did not tell him to do any. He went right off & drow [ned] himself. His Daughter workd for me up to 1900'. Item 'b' comprises an identical silk panel to the one in the card complete with the paper galley & faces behind the windows.