Sailors' Valentines by Gayle Condit

Sailors' Valentine Class!

February 18 & 19, 2012
Creative Arts Center, Crowell Road, Chatham

Got a question about the class? Click here to email Gayle

The story of the Sailors' Valentine begins in the early ninteenth century, when it was customary for sailors, after returning home from long voyages at sea, to come bearing sentimental gifts for wives, sweethearts, daughters and mothers. Sailors' Valentines, known in their day simply as "shell mosaics," were among the most common gifts.

2007 Sanibel Seashell Show
Traditional Category
2nd Place
In Private Collection

There is speculation that the very earliest Sailors' Valentines were the handywork of the sailors themselves, spending the long weeks and months at sea meticulously creating tokens of their affection for shorebound loved ones. However, the vast majority of surviving nineteenth century Sailors' Valentines provide evidence that, by the 1830s, the octagonal shell mosaics were being made almost exclusively by craftsmen of the British West Indies, and sold to sailors whose ships were in port there.

In particular, the island of Barbados (often a vessel's last port-of-call before returning to America) was a source of great many early Sailors' Valentines. As a major center of trade in the nineteenth century, Barbados typically swarmed with American, English and Dutch sailors, all looking for ways to spend their wages during their precious few hours on land. Many early Sailors' Valentines surviving today carry messages such as "A Gift from Barbados," and a rare few even bear the original Barbadian shopkeeper's label pasted on the back of the wooden case.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Sailors' Valentines were no longer being produced in great quantities in the West Indies or anywhere else. In the 1830s, collecting of these now antique momentos of the sea became popular, and the name Sailors' Valentines was adopted. Since that time, the intrigue of the octogonal shell mosaics has grown immensely. Today, after a silence of nearly a century, the once-lost art form is being resurrected by a handful of Sailors' Valentines craftsmen.