Antique & Vintage Postcards

A graceful allegorical fountain-monument glimpsed through iron railings in a leafy Bronx park — this undivided-back postcard from around 1905 documents the Heinrich Heine Monument, a work with a remarkable transatlantic story: commissioned by German-American admirers of the beloved Jewish-German Romantic poet after the city of Düsseldorf refused to erect it in his birthplace, the monument (sculpted by Ernst Herter, 1899) found its permanent home in the South Bronx's Joyce Kilmer Park (then Bronx Park area). The card was published by Souvenir Post Card Co., New York, and carries a handwritten message in the image border — someone named the sender asks the recipient to "Tell Auntie Hello, tell her to come Sunday and [Olago?] will be here" — a fleeting, tender domestic exchange typical of the Edwardian postcard craze. The card shows characteristic undivided-back (UDB) format with no address/message dividing line, placing it firmly before 1907. The green duotone printing and worn corners speak to its age and use.