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Cut paper Valentine with cut out figures birds and flowers. Center plain with poem: "Let love occupy your heart / Let love inflame you continually. Not a love which burns with incontinence / And pursues a base desire for worldy things. / God's love should impel you / To leave Evil alone / To love your Neighbor as yourself / And carry your cross forbearingly / Made in Honor/ of/ Sophia Kemperlin / moth(?) of John Tillman Dickenshaw in the year of our Lord 1752."
cut-paper work
valentines
paper (fiber product)
Picture, Cut-paper
A rare example of an eighteenth-century Germanic art form found in New England, this cut paper valentine was a gift to Maria Sophia Kemper whose family immigrated to the Hudson River Valley and later moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey where this was made. When she grew up Kemper married an English soldier, John Morton, later a hero for his support of the Patriots' cause during the Revolution. The valentine was discovered in Maria Kemper Morton's chest after her death and was framed and displayed by her granddaughter, Eliza Susan Quincy. Dated 1752, it is one of the earliest known documented American valentines.
Kemperlin, Sophia
Original to Josiah Quincy House (Quincy, Mass.),
Unknown
14 7/8 x 18 5/8 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of Edmund Quincy
1972.42
New Jersey (United States)
Historic New England is committed to implementing reparative language description for existing collections and creating respectful and inclusive language description for new collections. If you encounter language in Historic England's Collections Access Portal that is harmful or offensive, or you find materials that would benefit from a content warning, please contact [email protected].
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