ATTRIBUTED TO ELIZABETH COBBOLD, FIRST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Elizabeth Cobbold was a writer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, immortalized in fiction as Mrs. Leo Hunter in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. In 1790, aged twenty-three, she moved to Ipswich and married John Cobbold, a prominent Ipswich banker, brewer and merchant. Although recognized for her interests in the fields of poetry, theatre, science and charity, she is perhaps best remembered for her annual St Valentine's Day party for which she created individual paper silhouette Valentines, each inscribed with an original poem. It is understood that the ladies' and gentlemen's Valentines were each cut from a doubled piece of paper and placed in separate baskets; her unmarried guests were then invited to draw out a Valentine at random and the individuals who drew the same picture were then coupled for the evening. The popularity of the Valentines led to the publication of selected verses in the book Cliff Valentines of 1813. The parties which had run annually since 1806 ended when Elizabeth became ill in 1822 and she subsequently died two years later.