A vivid chromolithographic novelty card from the celebrated Wartburg Castle in Thuringia presents one of the most entertaining folk-art conceits of Wilhelmine-era German popular culture: each decade of human life compared to a specific animal. Divided into masculine ("Das männliche Geschlecht") and feminine ("Das weibliche Geschlecht") columns, the chart marches from infancy to extreme old age — a man at 10 is a calf, at 40 a lion, at 100 a death's-head; a woman at 1 is a chick, at 50 a hen, at 100 a "Schnabellotenkopf." A heraldic shield at center reads Das menschliche Leben in Tiergestalt im Gang am Bankettsaal — "Human life in animal form, in the corridor of the banquet hall" — referencing the actual painted frieze that once decorated Wartburg's great hall. The castle vignette below is recognizable as the UNESCO World Heritage site where Martin Luther translated the New Testament; this souvenir postcard would have been purchased by visitors walking that very corridor. Publisher Richard Zieschank of Ronneburg, Thuringia produced this card (Nr. 613) in an ornate crenellated border of green and purple, making it a charming artifact of early 20th-century German tourism and folk philosophy.