Valentine Museum Houses: In Battle Abbey (the city's Confederate Memorial Institute) are portraits of Confederate officers and a series of murals of the Civil War by the French painter, Charles Hoffbauer. The Valentine Museum houses such items of historical and art interest as Edward Virginius Valentine's plaster model of the marble statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, erected in Lexington, Ky., the death mask of Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, and dioramas of episodes in Richmond's history. In the World War I Memorial are Virginia's relics of that later struggle. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,a state institution, contains rare European and American prints and paintings, Russian jewelry, and other art collections.
The Poe ihrine is a small stone structure, bearing the liters /. R. on the front wall, which is thought 5 stand for Jacobus Rex, the Latin name of ames II, reigning king of England when the ouse was built. The Wickham-Valentine House, part of the Valentine Museum, is a two-story :uccoed brick structure, designed by the famous ^merican architect, Robert Mills, and built in 312 as a residence for John Wickham, Aaron urr's chief attorney. Its carriage house, now part of the museum, was long used as a studio i the Richmond-born artist, Edward Virginius Valentine (1838-1930).
SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY, val'en-tmz, a Christian festival commemorating the martyrdom of St. Valentine (see VALENTINE) on Feb. 14, 270. It was celebrated as early as the 7th century, but .by the 14th century its religious significance was overshadowed by the nonreligious customs still associated with the day. Acceptance of St. Valentine as patron saint of lovers appears to be accidental. |