Of Love and Lace

About

Luton Culture presents

Share the love and join Head of Heritage and Collections, Elise Naish, for an evening talk as she explores the museum's collection of fascinating Valentine's cards, including the exquisite paper lace valentines.

The tradition of sending love tokens and notes on 14th February has been around for hundreds of years, with the earliest surviving valentines dating from the 15th century. However, it wasn't until the Victorian era that the beautiful paper lace valentines began to emerge. This technique is said to have been discovered by Joseph Addenbrooke in 1834 when, while working on making embossed papers for a company called Dobbs, he accidentally filed off the raised part of the paper and was left with a pattern of tiny holes that looked remarkably like delicate lace.

Join us to learn more fascinating facts about the development of Valentines cards, such as the introduction of mass production, plus get the chance to witness some of the beautiful keep-sakes that we have in our collection, some of which have never before been on display.

Age guidance: 12+

*SPECIAL OFFER*
Book for two of our talks in one transaction and save 20%! This offer applies to Of Love and Lace and If Hats Could Talk.