Sheet Music: You're Just a Flower From an Old Bouquet, Orange & Black Cover, De Pasquali, Kansas City, Antique 1924

An orange-and-white striped cover frames a powdered-wig beauty reading a love letter, with the title lettered in bold black above her. Nearly a century old, it makes a wonderful piece of Halloween masquerade décor.

• Maker: J.W. Jenkins Sons Music Co.
• Lyric / Music: Gwynne Denni | Lucien Denni
• Materials: Paper
• Dimensions: 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 inches
• Origin: Kansas City, Missouri, USA
• Era: Antique, 1924
• Condition: Very Good. Very light toning from age and a tiny bent corner at the upper right. The front cover has separated from the back cover along the spine fold on the lower half. The loose center page, which holds the music and is normally unattached, has been taped to the inside back cover, likely by a previous owner so it stays put at the piano. A purple dealer's stamp appears on the cover. Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.

The cover shows a young woman in an 18th-century-style gown and towering white wig, chin resting on her hand as she reads a letter beside a dark round-backed chair of flowers. A photograph of soprano De Pasquali, billed as "The International Favorite Coloratura Soprano," appears at lower left. The back cover carries the publisher's advertisements for two other 1924 songs, the "Adoration Waltz" and the fox trot "Come and Whisper Dear," each with a sample of the music and a small cover illustration.

Frame it and set it out on a buffet or dessert table at a Halloween masquerade, where the tangerine and black palette and the powdered-wig heroine suit a candlelit, costume-ball mood. It also works in a music room or a vintage gallery wall, and for musicians, collectors of illustrated sheet music, and anyone who loves 1920s cover art.

"You're Just a Flower From an Old Bouquet" was published in 1924 by J.W. Jenkins Sons Music Co. of Kansas City, a firm that issued popular songs, waltzes, and orchestra arrangements through the early twentieth century. Lucien Denni wrote the music and Gwynne Denni the lyric, a sentimental love song about searching for a sweetheart and finding her at last. The song was a hit of the day: Victor released a recording in 1924, and it was later taken up by dance orchestras and, decades afterward, the Andrews Sisters. Jenkins issued several editions of the song. Another cover features Broadway star Elsie Janis, and library records tie the song to her revue Puzzles of 1925. This edition instead highlights De Pasquali, whose billing signals the song's appeal to concert and parlor singers as well as dance-band audiences. The sheet music itself was a household staple of the era, bought at music shops and played at the family piano. Here, one has a second life as art.

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