ABSTRACT
SAILORS’ VALENTINES are ensembles of small sea-shells of various colors, mounted on an octagonal wooden backboard in a mosaic-like arrangement, and enclosed in a frame of mahogany or cedar, with a glass top. Typically, they vary in diameter from about eight to twenty inches (twenty to fifty centimeters). The mosaic is usually a geometric, floral, or heart motif, often accompanied by a sentimental motto or slogan (hence the appellation “valentine”), but seldom including any pictorial or figural content. Sailors’ valentines are often double, consisting of two octagonal framed mosaics hinged together, so that they can be closed, with the glass panels facing one another on the inside, and the wooden backboards forming a protective box on the outside. This also enables double valentines to be displayed standing, like hinged double frames for photographs. Contrary to popular belief, sailors’ valentines were customarily produced for sailors, rather than by sailors, primarily on Barbados, in the West Indies, where valentine-making was a cottage industry that began perhaps as early as 1830, and flourished during the second half of the nineteenth century. Barbados was a popular port-of-call for homeward-bound British and American merchant ships and South Sea whalers; most sailors’ valentines of known provenance have associations with Barbados. Typical mottoes include “REMEMBER ME“and “GIFT FROM A FRIEND,” but “GIFT FROM BARBADOS” also appears; the backs of some bear paper labels from curiosity shops in Kingstown, and an inventory identifying thirty-five species of sea-shells found in sailors’ valentines corroborates their probable Barbadian origin. Several important examples. However, are well documented as having come from elsewhere: notably, a large double octagon with floral motif, purchased in June 1870 at St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, by whaleman Henry M.Hall of the New Bedford Wave. Variations include mosaics with carte de visite or postcard photographs, and others with personal names or external inscriptions. Other objects incorporating seashell mosaics are also referred to as sailors’ valentines, such as small boxes and cases encrusted with shells. Another example often included in the category of sailors’ valentines is a late Victorian genre of British sea-resort souvenirs consisting of a picture-usually a small colored lithograph of nautical interest, such as lifesaving heroine Grace Darling rescuing crewmen from a shipwreck in 1838-surrounded by a frame of seashells, surmounted by a glass plate or dome, sometimes including small starfish and other nautical bits, the whole usually circular, rectangular, or starshaped.
