Exhibitions
HEARTS AND FLOWERS: VICTORIAN VALENTINESFebruary 1 - 27, 2012
The Henry B. Plant Museum is featuring a collection of antique valentines from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Samples of this treasured paper ephemera will be on display. In addition to the Museum’s collection, Sean Donnelly with The University of Tampa has lent us 35 valentines from his collection. Themes often included pictures of children and cherubs, cupids and arrows, hearts, forget-me-nots, lush cabbage roses, bits of lace, feathers, seashells and dried flowers – all intertwined with sentimental messages.
Historians know little about early celebrations of Valentine’s Day. According to Popular Antiquities, a book by John Brand published in 1877, people in England observed the holiday as early as 1446. In those days, young people chose their valentines by writing names on slips of paper, then drawing them by chance from a vase. An account of the celebration of the holiday in the 1700’s describes how social groups met “in the homes of gentry” on the eve of Valentine’s Day to carry out this custom. After drawing lots, each young man wore the paper with his lady’s name on his sleeve for several days. The expression, “ He wears his heart on his sleeve,” probably came from this custom.
Valentine’s Day reached its height of celebration in the Victorian Era. The majority of the early Victorian valentines were made by hand from honeycombed tissue, watercolors, paper puffs, colored inks, embossed paper hearts and exquisite lace. With printing advances in the 1850’s, designing cards became a highly competitive market, and included a vast array of motifs and verses. Cards were being produced by the thousands, from whimsical to sentimental, and even though they were mass-produced; they featured feathers of real birds, posies of dried flowers and hearts trimmed with ribbons and gold lace.
The lyrics in these cards were as elaborate as the decorations. Whether sent by a steady beau or a secret admirer, these cards were unabashedly sentimental, pleading for affection and pledging undying devotion.
JAPAN AND THE VICTORIANS
March 30 - December 23, 2012
Orientalism was at its height during the Gilded Age. By 1854, Commodore Matthew C. Perry had opened the island of Japan to the Western world. Victorians were eager to explore and consume Japan’s exotic culture. Japanese exhibits at World’s Fairs and International Expositions brought their art and culture into Victorian parlors. Henry Plant encountered their ceramics, silks, furniture and woodblock prints at the Centennial International Exposition of 1876 Philadelphia, the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris, and again at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The Henry B. Plant Museum’s new exhibit, Japan and the Victorians explores the deliberate presence of Japanese art in a Gilded Age resort as part of a larger discourse on a cultural, artistic, and aesthetic style that influenced 19th century Western artists and culture. It will open March 30th and continue through December 23, 2012.
Japan and the Victorians will highlight the Victorian passion for Japanese culture and art. Works that depict the Japanese influence on American art in the 19th century and objects that show the Western influence on Japanese art will be on display. The foundation of this exhibit will draw from Mr. Plant’s collection of Meiji era floor vases, ceramics and furniture that were part of the Tampa Bay Hotel. Works will also be on loan from private collections, Grolier Club, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Morikami Museum and Polk Museum of Art.
Asian Art scholar, Dr. Daphne Lange Rosenzweig will be our guest curator and lecturer and will present "Meiji Japan and the West" on Friday, March 30th at 7:15 pm in the Music Room, Plant Hall (adjacent to the Museum). Lecture is open to the public and free of charge. Limited seating, make reservations by emailing Heather Trubee Brown at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or calling 813.258.7304.
Daphne Lange Rosenzweig, author, professor, museum consultant, lecturer, exhibition curator, and appraiser, is a specialist in Asian Art and archaeology. Graduating with degrees from Mount Holyoke College (A.B.) and Columbia University (M.A. and Ph.D), as a Fulbright Fellow Dr. Rosenzweig conducted research on Chinese painting and jades for two years at the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Having taught at the University of New Mexico, Oberlin College and the University of South Florida, she is currently a senior art history professor at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL and frequently travels to Asia. She wrote the text for “The Appraisal of Japanese Prints” course offered through ISA.
A Certified Appraiser of Personal Property with the International Society of Appraisers, and a former member of its Board of Directors, Daphne Lange Rosenzweig has been awarded both the Lamp of Knowledge and the Leadership Awards from ISA. She is President of Rosenzweig Associates, Inc., a personal property appraisal firm devoted to Asian art appraisals, with both national and international clients.
Underwritten by Magnon Jewelers, Greenberg Traurig and Dr. Alfred N. Page and Lynn Manos
