Antique & Vintage Postcards

Autumn fire burns across the hillside of Prague's Malá Strana in this luminous watercolour by Czech artist Jaroslav Šetelík, dated 1915 in the plate — warm ochres and russets cascading around the dark spire of a Gothic chapel while the green copper dome of St Nicholas Church crowns the Baroque skyline above. Part of the prestigious "Pražské akvarely Jaroslava Šetelíky" (Prague Watercolours of Jaroslav Šetelík) series published by M.J.K. in Prague, this is Series IV, card no. 42, titled "Malá Strana — Petit Côté" in both Czech and French — a bilingual caption reflecting the cosmopolitan aspirations of pre-war Bohemia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, just one year before the upheavals that would reshape Central Europe. Šetelík's atmospheric rendering captures the Lesser Town district from an elevated vantage — probably Hradčany — with the Charles Bridge arch faintly suggested in the middle ground. The four-leaf clover printer's mark on the reverse is characteristic of M.J.K.'s quality art-postcard output, which rivalled Vienna's celebrated Wiener Werkstätte cards in artistic ambition. Unused and crisp, this card preserves a vision of Prague that was already becoming elegy as the Great War raged.