 |
| Click image above to enlarge |
Scrapbooking, as we know, is not just the modern pastime of craft-inclined people, it was the hobby of many a Victorian lady. In fact, the very principles of scrapbooking developed during the reign of Queen Victoria. The term arises from the paper scraps which could be purchased for this and other decorative purposes. The trade cards at which we’ve been looking often found their way into scrapbooks as did cartes de visite and cabinet cards as well as souvenirs, ribbons, tickets, programs, notes, etc.
In addition to the scraps which were sold, then—like today—little decorative paper shapes were available to jazz up your scrapbook. This card may, in fact, be one of them. However, I think that this delicate fan-shape owes more to careful hand-cutting with scissors than it does being cut with a die. Often, little scraps—like the one we see mounted on this fan-shaped card—were displayed on these fancy shapes in order to frame them within the scrapbook.
Personally, I think this was the handiwork of someone with better scissor-skills than I possess. It has all of the hallmarks of being handmade. To begin with, the fact that the paper seems to be reclaimed from something else indicates to me that this is the clever work of some long-gone young lady. I’m thinking that she—whoever she was—made this as a mount for the pretty little scrap that we still see on it. She even signed the back. I believe she presented this to a friend—as was the habit of the time—who, then, mounted it into her own scrapbook.
The colorful scrap is just as brilliant as the day this unknown girl glued it to the fan. A robin—against a bed of flowers—holds a card in his beak which reads:
May you be as happy
As little Robin red
Your heart aglow
with sunshine
E’en when summer’s fled!
That’s very sweet. Isn’t it?
Let’s look at the back. It is signed:
Mrs. T.K. Cushman
Oct. 15, 1891
No comments:
Post a Comment