Rendered in the soft silvery halftone of an Edwardian-era photographic postcard, this early 1909 view shows the grand U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C. — a monumental Greek Revival structure with imposing colonnaded facades on multiple sides, pedestrians in period dress strolling the cobblestone street below. The building, designed in the mid-19th century and today home to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, was already a Washington landmark when this card was mailed. On April 17, 1909, the sender — signing with a name that begins with a flourish — wrote to Miss Mary in Warwick, Pennsylvania, gushing about the beauty of the capital and noting with excitement that she had "Saw Supreme Court today." A 1-cent Franklin green stamp (Scott #300-series) franks the card, postmarked Washington D.C. at 1:30 AM and received in Warwick, PA the same day.