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An Exceptionally Hard-Working Valentine

Love’s bonds can be delicate yet feel constraining and require hard work to maintain. How better to express all that than by slicing paper into handmade greeting cards, with whorls that can be pulled up to form gossamer cages for images of lovebirds, bouquets, engagement rings, or even rodents?

The cards, known to fans as cobwebs or beehives, became popular in the 1800s. Some will be for sale March 16-17 at the Ephemera Society of America’s annual fair at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Old Greenwich, Conn. Eclectibles, a local dealer, is bringing a piece made in 1817 (and priced at $2,400), with watercolors of a calico cat on the cobweb’s surface and two anxious mice inside. Nothing is known about its maker, Eleanor Green, who signed and dated her work.

Sheryl Jaeger, the co-owner of Eclectibles, said watching it open brought “a real sense of wonder.” A video of the cat in motion will be shown on site, so visitors will not be tempted to pull the string of the delicate piece themselves.

Nancy Rosin, an expert on valentines who helps the Metropolitan Museum of Art catalog its collection, said the card’s feline imagery was unusual. For Eleanor Green, did the cat perhaps represent herself, or a confidant?

“We can read all kinds of messages into it,” Ms. Rosin said. She added that Ms. Green laboriously cut the paper, noting that it seems that for some cobweb makers, “love was all-empowering.” ephemerasociety.org — EVE M. KAHN