Hmmm...where to begin? This isn't a trade card per se. It's not a calling card or even a visiting card. It's simply a pretty little chromolithograph printed on card stock. Now, I do believe that this could have been used as a trade card. It looks like the sort which were available for over-printing or reverse printing through catalogs. But, this just wasn't a run-of-the-mill stock card. This one is beautifully embossed. This would have made printing on the reverse rather awkward, but that never stopped them. This was the preferred Victorian image-- Cupid or some random putto (or perhaps just a winged baby, who can tell?) surrounded by a variety of symbolic flowers (none of which, oddly enough, is a forget-me-not), sitting on a quasi-funereal plinth, wistfully carving some sweet message into a tabula rassa with one of his arrows. On the plinth below him is inscribed "Forget me Not." Regardless if this unused card was made as a blank trade card or as a never-used affectionate greeting, it is gorgeously printed. These bright, rich colors are, to me, the epitome of Victorian printing. Furthermore, the embossing is exceptional. A chromolithograph in relief of this quality doesn't seem to be the work of late Nineteenth-Century American printers. I'd say this was European. So, let's have a caption contest. We've not done one yet this week. I'm ashamed, why don't you tell me what the little tyke is scrawling on the tablet... Answers in the comments section, please. Source: Stalking the Belle Époque
