We challenged our team of specialists to find items from our wide-ranging stock they they thought would make an interesting Valentine's Day gift this year. Scroll down to see what they came up with.
Pictured in the header of this article is an illuminated doctoral degree certificate from the university of Padova, dated 1641.
Hazel
Early European Books & Illuminations
I've chosen this calendar leaf from a late fifteenth-century French Book of Hours for its lovely miniature, which depicts a young couple out riding on horseback (the poor horse!) on a sunny spring day. Though the calendar leaf is for the month of May, rather than February, it's a romantic scene perfect for Valentine's Day; the pair aren't paying any attention to their surroundings, instead gazing adoringly into each other's eyes, and I love the rich detail of their clothing and the horse's tack.
There's a mildly salacious, cheeky element to it too which isn't something you can often say about the content of Books of Hours; the sign for Gemini of a naked man and woman embracing, here painted in the upper corner, was one of a very few places in these sorts of devotional manuscripts where artists could give their patrons a little thrill by portraying nudity!
French Artist, Illuminated calendar leaf on vellum for May/June from a Book of Hours. Central France (Bourges or Tours), (c.1490).
Euphemia
Far East – Japan & China
This image features in a beautiful album of woodblock prints by Ogata Gekko (1859–1920), with discreet pencil annotations in English. This annotator has helpfully told us which each print depicts. In this case, the man resting on the ground is the famous sculptor Hidari Jingoro (1584–1644) in front of his own sculpture of a Yoshiwara district beauty.
I especially like the way he looks up at the sculpture so lovingly – one wonders whether he is admiring the female figure, his skill as a sculptor, or both.
Ogata Gekko, Gekko Zuihitsu [Gekko’s Miscellaneous Jottings]. (Meiji 29, i.e. 1896)
Bonny
Modern Literature
This anthology of poetry by Wendy Cope is one of my favourites, her love poems are unconventional, funny, and honest. A nice option if you are looking for something a little different.
Wendy Cope, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986)
Chris
Early British
A satirical print showing a pair of extravagantly dressed women admiring soldiers camped on a field below their window. They peer from an upstairs window (one of the women is using a telescope) at a group of soldiers who are camped on a nearby field.
The satire appears to be based on the ambiguity of the women's status: they appear at first glance to be well-dressed upper class women, but the same scene - two women looking out from an upstairs window - is also used in other satirical print to suggest prostitution, see, for example, Laurie and Whittle's Such Things Are (1794).
Made for R. Sayer & J. Bennett, The Wishing Females (1781).
Fuchsia
Travel
A true master of the love poem, this volume of William Butler Yeats includes the beautiful "Aedh wishes for the cloth of heaven". The speaker expresses a desire to give his lover sumptuous gifts, but instead must settle for what his means allow: "I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
W.B. Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)
Ben
Private Press, Illustrated & Fine Binding
Made famous by Edward Fitzgerald's 1859 translation of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam, the Rubaiyat is open to myriad interpretations. The reading which speaks most to me is that life is as wonderful as it is fragile and fleeting; so eat, drink and be merry while you can, and don't hesitate to tell someone that you love them.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Willy Pogany, Edward Fitzgeralt and Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám. (1909)
Gus
Philosophy & Economics
A moving testament to one of the most important intellectual relationships of the twentieth century, and perhaps the most famous polyamorous relationship of all time.
Simone de Beauvoir, Lettres à Sartre (1930-1963). (1990)
