Antique & Vintage Postcards

The colonnaded mass of La Madeleine — Paris's temple-church hybrid commissioned by Napoleon as a monument to his Grande Armée — fills the frame in a razor-sharp real-photo postcard that places us squarely in the mid-1940s: three period French automobiles, including what appear to be a Citroën Traction Avant and a Peugeot 202, are parked along the iron fence on the Rue Royale side, their running boards and sweeping fenders dating the shot to approximately 1944–1950. Pedestrians in postwar dress animate the foreground while summer plane trees soften the neoclassical severity of the 52 Corinthian columns. Published by Éditions O.P., Paris ("Fabrication Française"), this large-format (approximately 5.5 × 3.75 inch) glossy real-photo card is numbered "6" in the series and carries a handwritten price notation of "2/-" (two shillings) in the upper right corner — evidence it was stocked in a British tourist shop or passed through a British collector's hands. Unused and unaddressed, it retains exceptional tonal range.