Antique & Vintage Postcards

The magnificent red-brick façade of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum — P.J.H. Cuypers' neo-Gothic and Renaissance masterpiece, completed in 1885 — dominates this finely colorized Pre-linen postcard cover, pedestrians strolling the broad approach avenue beneath tall elms. Pull back the flap and out unfolds a treasury in miniature: accordion panels reproducing Dutch Golden Age masterworks from the Rijksmuseum's own collection, including Jan Steen's "Scene d'Intérieur," Nicolaes Maes' "La Fileuse" (The Lacemaker), Jacob van Ruisdael's "De Molen bij Wijk bij Duurstede" (The Mill at Wijk), and another Maes work "Le Bénédicité" (Saying Grace). Published by J. Vlieger of Amsterdam, a respected Dutch stationer, this is both an architectural souvenir and a portable art gallery — the kind of refined keepsake a museum visitor named Hendrik or Anna might have carried home from a Sunday afternoon among the Rembrandts.