“Valentine Love Seeds” card

Naiad and Walter Einsel were a couple of illustrators. They met in 1952, got married in 1953, and shared a business – first in New York and from the mid-1960s in Westport, Connecticut – often working collaboratively on commissions.

For nearly half a century, Naiad (1927–2016) and Walter (1926–1998) created elaborate Valentines for one another. A selection of these illustrations, collages, poems and sculptures were collected in the book Art from the Heart, published in 2008 by Xlibris.

Shown here is a Valentine card that Naiad made for Walter in 1993:

Valentine Love Seeds
Sow the seeds of love and reap a Magical Harvest of sweet passon fruit. — Naiad
February 19th Nineteen Ninety-three
For Walter Only

Most of the text is rendered in her signature script calligraphy. The rest is probably hand-lettering (or rubber stamps?), but two styles are based on typefaces: “Valentine” and “Walter” are in Concave Condensed, a design that originated in metal ca. 1882 at MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in Philadelphia. “Love Seeds” features caps from De Vinne, first cast by St. Louis’s Central Type Foundry about a decade later.

To learn more about Naiad and Walter and see more of their work, see the dedicated website and the accompanying Instagram account curated and maintained by their granddaughter, Lisa Bastoni.