Be my Valentine?

‘Will you be my valentine?’ – the question posed annually to potential romantic interests – is probably more fraught this year with Melbourne in stage 4 hard lockdown on Valentine’s Day. If you have a significant other, you can spend the day together and even take a short recreational outing while masked. If you are aware of your partner’s COVID negative status you may even feel comfortable in engaging in the sort of activity Melbourne artist, Sharon Goodwin, espouses in her painting in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

However, if you are seeking alternative virtual ‘Valentine options’ then I suggest you might acquaint yourself with the ‘valentines’ at the NGV. The collection has four ‘valentines’ on offer:

Valentine Green (1739-1813) abandoned a career in the legal profession to become an engraver and print publisher who was particularly renowned for his mezzotint engravings. Hailing from Warwickshire, Green trained under Robert Hancock at Worcester and moved to London at the age of 25 where he quickly established himself in the front rank of British engravers. Within two years, Green became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists and by 1775 was an associate-engraver at the Royal Academy as well as being appointed mezzotint engraver to the king.

During his forty years of practice, Green produced around four hundred plates which included works after portraits by Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney, and compositions after pictures by Van Dyck, Rubens, Murillo and West. His technique was particularly noted for ‘exceptional richness and subtlety of tone, … by very judicious management of relations of light and shade; and … notable freshness and grace of handling’.

Sadly, Green’s business skills were not as great as his artistic ability and through a series of financial failures, he was reduced to poverty. In consequence, the last eight years of his life were spent in the post of keeper of the British Institution – a private 19^th century society in London, dominated by the nobility rather than practising artists, which was formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists.

The NGV has six works by Green in the collection. Of particular relevance to Valentine’s Day are ‘Paris and Helen’ and ‘David Garrick with a bust of Shakespeare’.  In ‘Paris and Helen’ we see Paris directing cupid to pierce Helen’s breast with his arrow to inflame her with love for him – perhaps a rather vicious entreaty to be a valentine!

In ‘David Garrick with a bust of Shakespeare’ we are reminded that Shakespeare was one of the first English writers to mention Valentine’s Day. At the beginning of her second song in Hamlet, Ophelia begins with a statement about her role in society singing: “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day, / All in the morning betime, / And I a maid at your window, / To be your Valentine”. While there are various interpretations of Ophelia’s ‘mad songs’ many acknowledge the patriarchal pressure felt by Ophelia to be sane and obedient to the men in her life, or fear the consequences if she is not. Maybe being a ‘valentine’ requires a clear understanding of the implications…

If Valentine Green provides food for thought then James Valentine and Valentine Blanchard provide ‘valentine partner options’. James Valentine (1815-1879) was an early Scottish photographer who was noted for his topographical views of Scotland and, internationally, as the producer of picture postcards. Born in Dundee, Valentine studied photography at the University of St Andrews. In 1825 Valentine’s father  established the Valentine Company as an engraving and printing business. After James learned the daguerreotype process in Paris in the late 1840s, he added portrait photography to the company’s activities. By 1855, James Valentine had erected one of the largest photographic glasshouses in Britain which led to Royal commissions and the Royal warrant in 1867.

Valentine & Sons Ltd specialised in scenic views aimed at the national middle and upper class tourist market, with the production of drawing room albums containing selections of photographs arranged geographically. Subjects concentrated on tourist sites initially in Scotland, then England, and later fashionable resorts abroad including Norway, Jamaica, Tangiers, Morocco and even New Zealand.

Calling themselves ‘photographic publishers’, the Valentines reproduced a great variety of photographic goods such as the portrait featured in the cartes-de-visite album from the 1860s-80s in the NGV collection. The photograph of the young, beautiful and glamorous ‘Mrs. Thardman Parker’ indicates that she was no longer in need of a valentine.

Following the death of James Valentine, the company was run by his sons. It was subsequently purchased by John Waddington Limited and later Hallmark Cards in 1980 – giving it a longstanding and permanent link with Valentine’s Day memorabilia.

Valentine Blanchard (1831-1901) was a prominent English photographer widely recognised for his artistic and technical contributions to photography in the second half of the 19^th century. Born in Cambridgeshire as the son of a solicitor’s clerk, Blanchard completed a printing apprenticeship before moving to London. In his mid-twenties, he set out on a new career as a photographer using the daguerreotype process. Developing a ‘wet plate process’, Blanchard became known in the early 1860s for his extensive stereoscopic views of London, Brighton, Dover and Ramsgate. When the market for stereo cards declined, Blanchard shifted his attention to the ‘studio portrait’ and achieved bronze awards for his photographs in the International Exhibition in Paris in 1867. From 1870-1888, Blanchard was extensively involved with the Photographic Society of London, including regular exhibitions and a stint as its Vice President.

Although the Liverpool Mercury 6 December 1869 recorded an explosion in his studio which ‘threw Mr Blanchard into the garden flat on his back and blew to pieces all his cameras and other appliances of photography’, Blanchard only injured his left hand and was able to continue his successful career and photographic experimentation. In the next decades his innovations included the ‘powder process’ (in which a picture is formed by dusting powder on an image in bichromate gelatine which is sensitive to light), a ‘platinum toning process’ (silver particles were replaced by platinum particles), and a ‘carbon printing without transfer process’.

Blanchard’s photographs are held in a number of important public collections including the National Portrait Gallery in London and the John Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The National Gallery of Victoria has two of Blanchard’s studio portraits from the 1860s – ‘A Roman peasant’ and a ‘Basket weaver’. These provide wonderful examples of the early form of staged studio portraits. The sad, reflective gaze of the ‘peasant’ might remind us of previous carefree romantic Valentine Day celebrations; while the industrious ‘basket weaver’ suggests a more independent and task-oriented potential partner. I wonder if their contemporary Tinder profiles would encourage a ‘right swipe’?

The final NGV ‘valentine’ entrant is Captain Thomas Valentine Blomfield. Born on Valentine’s Day in 1793 and christened Valentine Thomas, Blomfield was a British soldier, pioneer New South Wales settler and pastoralist.  At the age of 16 years, Blomfield enlisted in the British Army. Following service in the Peninsula War and in several American battles – and after gaining the Military General Service Medal – Blomfield was stationed in Australia as part of the 48^th Regiment of Foot from 1817 to 1824.

In 1824 Blomfield sold out his commission in the army and settled on a 2,000 acre property on the Hunter River. Here he was one of the pioneering band who recognised the possibilities of the Monaro region –  eventually extending his holding to 35,000 acres. Along with his commitment to the land, Blomfield contributed significantly to local public service. Within ten years he was a magistrate, Justice of the Peace and later a Liverpool District Council member.

The Blomfield family were prolific letter writers and much of their correspondence has been preserved in a collection published in 1926 entitled ‘Memoirs of the Blomfield family being letters written by the Late Captain T. V. Blomfield and his wife to relatives in England’.

While stationed in Australia, Blomfield met Christiana Jane Brooks – his wife to be – who he described in a letter dated 4 September 1820 to his father as: “of fair complexion, about 5ft 5inches in height, fair hair and dark brown eyes and, of course, in my opinion, not ugly”.

Five years later on 2 June 1825, Christiana described her husband:  “Thomas has very dark hair, a high forehead, dark blue eyes, rather a short nose, a small mouth with a fine set of very white teeth, which he shows very much when he laughs; a very black beard, and nice black whiskers. Altogether he has a round face, a cheerful good-tempered countenance habitually when he laughs, which he does often and most heartily. In height he is five feet seven, and in my opinion a very good figure, and I know several young ladies who used to think so, too, when he was a bachelor. Oh, you’ll enjoy meeting him! He is such a joy!”

The NGV has a portrait of Blomfield by Augustus Earle from around this time. Earle had previously painted excellent likenesses, according to Christiana, of her parents (also in the NGV collection). However, Christiana was displeased with the portrait of her husband finding: “a want of the good-humoured and cheerful expression that he has”. She sat for her own portrait but this was also clearly a failure – “not the least like me, and a most wretched daub”. Blomfield agreed and was very disappointed  and angry with the outcome of his wife’s portrait describing it as “no more like her than it is like the man in the moon”.

In order to re-unite these two valentines we have to make do with a blurry much later photograph of Christiana.

Whatever your thoughts are this Valentine’s Day, it is worth reflecting on American activist and poet, Maya Angelou’s opinion of love: “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope”. Sadly this also sounds a lot like a mutating coronavirus. Stay safe and optimistic …. Happy Valentine’s Day!