Two people baking a cake together — soft pastels, gentle faces, the quiet domesticity of a shared moment — and stamped on the bottom, a line from one of the great Romantic poets: "All Love is Sweet, given or returned. Shelley, Valentine's Day 2002." It's a rare combination: a figurine that is both genuinely charming and genuinely literary.
The full verse is from Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1818–1820): "All love is sweet, given or returned. Common as light is love, and its familiar voice wearies not ever. Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air, it makes the reptile equal to the God; they who inspire it most are fortunate, as I am now: but those who feel it most are happier still." Shelley was born in Sussex, England in 1792 and is considered one of the great English Romantic poets. He died at sea at just 29 years old, on July 8, 1822. There is no maker's mark beyond the Shelley inscription — the piece arrived in the world as anonymously as a love letter slipped under a door.
A wonderful Valentine's Day gift for bakers, for Shelley admirers, for romantics of any kind — or simply for anyone who believes that making something together is its own kind of love.
Maker: Unknown, unmarked (inscribed "Shelley, Valentine's Day 2002")
Era: 2002
Material: Porcelain, hand painted
Dimensions: 5.0" tall × 4.5" long × 4.0" deep
Condition: Excellent. No chips, cracks, or scratches. All sales final.
