Can you hear the birds singing?

A postcard of a farm in Normandie. It looks an enchanted place. The card was sent to a Belgian artist, AF Cosyns, who worked in France from 1911 to 1950.

He received many interesting postcards from friends on their travels.

An American Sewing Machine

Every young girl's dream...

The New Home sewing machine was from America, but these postcards are both French. Here is the history of the company with lovely old illustrations, I imagine that some of them were postcards too..

Лили Дамита

Lili Damita 

At first I assumed that this was a postcard of a Russian Actress. I sent a scan off to J-M, my son-in-law, for a translation. Not at all a Russian actress, she was born in France in 1904!

After winning a beauty contest and appearing in several European films, she was invited to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn in 1928. She married an unknown actor who later became very well known, Errol Flyn. They divorced in 1942.

Lili died in 1994 before her 90th birthday of Alzheimer’s disease.

An interesting pair of shoes…

…With wishes for the new year by Achille Mauzan. He was a French artist who moved to Italy. Member of the Art Deco movement, he designed over 2000 posters.

Unfortunately these cards have a lot of foxing(rust marks) on the back as well as a child’s scribbling.

Sweet peas

Catharina Klein was born in Prussia in 1861.  She specialized in painting flowers and fruit and many of her works were used as postcard illustrations.  Before the war of 1914 many postcards were produced in Germany.  Later she was sometimes known as Catherine and worked in Berlin until her death in 1929.  During World War II many of her original paintings were destroyed by bombing by the allies. 

Her postcards are quite common, but I’ve not been able to find another postcard online like this one, posted in 1903, of sweet peas.

By coincidence

I came across this postcard today depicting a terrible storm back in 1904 in a town in the North of France. As a result of a storm, high winds and a deluge of rain, the little river that went through the town turned into a raging torrent. Houses that overhung the river were destroyed as their foundations were washed away. There was plenty of flooding and damage throughout the rest of the town too. 21 people died that day. A reminder perhaps, that we have always been at the mercy of nature.
(Whether the government be right or left!)

A quiet road

I think that I would like to spend a warm afternoon in spring taking a stroll down this road.

I looked on Google Earth.  There are still plenty of trees and also plenty of houses.  It’s a busy main road nowadays, so not much chance of a peaceful walk.  Did I find the same houses with steps leading up to them?  I can’t be sure…

Children playing in the park

Just over 100 years ago these children were enjoying themselves in a park in Paris.

These are exactly the kind of postcards that I would collect if I could afford them.  There again, if I didn't sell postcards like these I would never have had the chance to see them, let alone share them on this blog!

The Angelus

This is one of a set of postcards depicting the life of a family in their garden full of roses. If only all families could lead such a pleasant life…

Remember

We’re almost at the centenary of the very first battles of the First World War. Here are a few pictures to remind us why it was called a “World War”.

English friends

They came from the mountains...

... and from the Steppes.

They came from India (Hindou bakers)...

Not to mention Americans, Australians, Canadians, Africans ….

First Steps

This is sculpture from the 1911 Paris Art Exhibition. It’s called “The First Steps” and is by Gertrude Bricard. I could only find out that she was born in 1881 and died in 1963. If you look in Google images you will see more of her work.

It’s such a graceful sculpture it caught my eye straight away.

I discovered that 1911 at the exhibition was the year of the rise of Cubism, Apollinaire took Picasso to see the cubist works there! Critics thought that too much space had been given to the Cubists who were utterly without importance.

Somewhere in an exhibition room amongst all of the controversy was this lovely peaceful sculpture

Back to the Future

Way back in around 1900 a series of cards was produced imagining what the women of the future would look like doing ‘a man’s work’. Interestingly enough, most jobs are done by woman these days. Here we have the fire-fighter; I don’t think that her bare arms would be of much use in a fire. I wonder what these men would have thought of her.

The love Barometer

A postcard from around the time of the First World War. Especially for young lovers who are apart from their sweethearts. The barometer is marked, from the bottom to top, with ‘Timid – Joyous – Ardent – Love’. What better way to confirm the feelings of the one you love?

Through the tunnel

This view of the Alps through the tunnel is almost magical. It’s quite common to see this postcard, but not often with a car in the centre. I see that the driver is leaning over looking for something; a marker so that the car is in the right position for the photo perhaps?

A Clear view of the Eiffel Tower

This is a postcard of the Eiffel Tower taken before 1903. It was bought on the 2nd floor of the tower and stamped to prove it. My 22 year old son told me that he thought that the smoke coming out of the chimneys was strange. It wasn’t so long ago that smoke like that was a common site. What I really wanted him to notice was the clarity of the image. Unfortunately my scanner doesn’t do justice, but it gives a good idea as to how in focus the image is.

Three more postcards from Alsace

A woman's work is never done...

The heart of Alsace

Alsace is a region next to the German border and for many years passed between Germany and France. The history of Alsace is very complicated, so you can imagine how strongly the people must have felt being passed back and forth. These cards were posted in 1907. The young woman is wearing the traditional bow which became a symbol of the region. Colours and patterns varied from place to place within Alsace.

The three postcards are ‘Pray for France’, ‘God protect France’ and ‘The voices of France’

Artist's inspiration

Here is a postcard illustrated by the artist Frédéric Régamey. It is an advertisement for Vin Mariani which was Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves. Here you see examples of before, during and after.  The wine extracted the cocaine from the leaves which very much altered the drink’s effect (Queen Victoria drank it too!!). The wine was exported to the US where it was eventually replaced by Coca-Cola during the prohibition. While researching Vin Mariani and Frédéric Régamy I was interested to discover that he made the drawings from his own autoportrait – useful information for me as his brother was also F Régamy (Félix) and drew in a very similar style…

The postcard is in very poor condition and is over 110 years old. Thank you to Wikipedia for the drawing and information

Don't move

This family came from Le Faouët in Brittany and were being photographed in their best clothes. Over 110 years ago having your photograph taken must have been an ordeal. .. and not everyone knew about smiling for the camera.

Some things never change

This is a postcard of a house in La Rochelle, our guess is that it was taken 40 to 50 years ago. I won’t say where it is, but if you’ve been there, you’ve probably walked past it.

Rob went out and took a photograph of it yesterday. I wonder what happened to the children.