Paper is the one thing I tend to accumulate; most objects I buy I list right away, but I do have a stack of wonderful little paper things like this that tend to pile up--and when I pull them out to get to listing them, I am delighted all over again by their existence! This one was among a small pile of naive 19th c. drawings by a young Emma Dilmore I purchased several months ago--I believe she made this one too: a momento for a Sade Roberts (I believe it says) dated 1876. Between the tombstone shape of the paper, and the lovingly drawn curlicue and dot patterned border, and the careful hand-stitches tethering the small bunch of dried roses to the paper, plus that pink paper bow, I find it a wonderfully tender and quite poignant thing--and rather miraculous for arriving in my hands in perfectly preserved condition some 150 years later!
5 1/2" x 4 1/8" and in very good condition. Stable and not shedding or especially fragile, though I will package it carefully, as always.