Antique & Vintage Postcards

Against an ethereal gradient sky fading from dusty rose to pale blue, a lone camel rider in flowing white robes pauses beneath two tall date palms as the Great Pyramid of Giza looms in timeless grandeur behind him — this luminous hand-colored photographic postcard by the celebrated Cairo firm of Lehnert & Landrock is a quintessential example of the orientalist postcard tradition that flourished between the wars, when European and American tourists first flooded into Egypt in earnest. Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Landrock established their Cairo studio around 1924, producing some of the finest photographic postcards ever made of Egyptian subjects; their work is today actively collected as fine photography as much as ephemera. Card no. 2048 in their pyramid series, this unused example retains its fresh color and crisp stock, published and copyrighted by the firm from their Cairo atelier.