Edwardian Valentine's Day Card with Children in Red Heart Costumes

These two rosy-cheeked children seem to be contemplating how they ended up dressed as sentient playing cards gone harlequin — one in an all-red suit covered in white hearts, the other in white with red bows, both topped with pointed jester hats bearing heart motifs and enormous white ruffled collars that make their tiny heads look like garnishes on a Victorian cocktail. They're positioned in what appears to be a circus ring, flanked on one side by a colorful ball and on the other by a small dog being dragged around on a tiny wheeled platform — because apparently the dog also needed to be humiliated. The whole composition screams 'I love you' the way a funhouse mirror screams 'you look fine,' and whoever greenlit costuming toddlers as card-suit jesters for a romance holiday deserves to be studied by future historians as a cautionary tale.