Twin Baroque Revival towers soar above the bustling Ferenciek tere in this richly hand-tinted Photoiris card of Budapest's iconic Klotild Palaces — the symmetrical pair of ornate civic apartment buildings completed in 1902 that still frame the approach to the Elizabeth Bridge today, their copper-topped turrets and rusticated façades glowing amber-red under an improbably blue sky. A lone statue stands sentinel in the square below while pedestrians in Edwardian dress animate the foreground, capturing the prosperous pulse of wartime Budapest. Postmarked 21 November 1916 — as the aged Emperor Franz Joseph I lay on his deathbed (he died 21 November 1916, the very same day) — this card was addressed to a recipient in Pozsony (present-day Bratislava, Slovakia), written in flowing Hungarian script by a sender who signed off warmly, perhaps unaware of the momentous news breaking that day.