A fleet of gaily painted Italian fishing boats lies at close anchor in the sun-drenched harbour of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, their tall masts and colourful hulls — crimson, white, and blue — reflected in the calm green water, while the squat brick fish market building with its terracotta roof anchors the background and an American flag snaps in the Pacific breeze overhead. This vivid linen-era card captures the Wharf at its commercial peak, when hundreds of Italian-American fishermen — many of them immigrants from Sicily and the Ligurian coast — set out daily into the bay and beyond in search of Dungeness crab, salmon, and shrimp. The descriptive text on the back evokes a Mediterranean atmosphere transplanted to California, noting that the great nets dried on the wharf were a sight typical of the old country. Published by the Stanley A. Piltz Company of San Francisco, a prolific purveyor of California souvenir views from the linen era.