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Happy Valentine's Day from Shorpy (and Happy 11th Birthday to us!)
"Valentine, Miss. Between February 1894 and February 1901." 5x7 glass negative from the C.M. Bell portrait studio in Washington, D.C. View full size.
Apparently steel is the traditional gift for the 11th anniversary. Happy shiny metallic birthday, Shorpy. May all your dreams be stainless.
No one mentioned the attractive lazy right eye of Miss Valentine. Such persons have a striking gaze. The heroine in Edna Ferber’s novel Giant, Leslie Lynnton, is described as having this feature. So too did Abraham Lincoln.
I joined Shorpy when it was only 47 weeks old. It's STILL the best thing on the internet! I'm sure Miss Valentine would agree.
Not with Valentine, Miss., mind you, though she certainly appears altogether admirable and possessed of an exceedingly pleasant countenance; rather, I am captivated by the photographer's art and the immediacy of the image captured by C.M. Bell (or associate).
I also in remain in love with Shorpy and wish you the happiest of birthdays. I have been around since year one and it's images like this that maintain my interest and allegiance.
I visit your website everyday. I have told as many of my friends as I
can about the wonderful historical material you process and make available to the public to see.
I am 90 years old so many of these images bring back fund memories.
Jim K.
The girl is magnetically pretty, and the portrait, I don't quite know why, looks really modern. So many portraits from that age look flat, with the eyes of the subject looking lifeless. I'm not sure if it is a function of the lighting or the lens.Maybe the lighting allowed the photographer to stop down, leading to more depth than usual for that era?
124 winters having passed since our subject sat for her portrait, one wonders who our "Miss Valentine" is, and if she had any fair children to whom her youthful beauty could be passed.
This photo proves that beauty is timeless, and we are merely visitors peering through windows.
Thank you Shorpy.
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