Antique & Vintage Postcards

Dappled sunlight filters through mature elms to illuminate the Buffalo Historical Society's stately Greek Revival temple in this quietly elegant 1905 black-and-white Rotograph card — a building that survives today as the Buffalo History Museum, one of New York's great cultural institutions. The card's fine halftone print, produced by The Rotograph Co. of New York City (printed in Germany), captures the Ionic colonnade and gently sloping lawn with a painterly softness that distinguishes Rotograph's quality from cheaper domestic printers of the era. Mailed from Buffalo in February 1905 with a 1¢ Franklin stamp, it was addressed to a woman named Mrs. [Shu-] on Aetna Street in Cleveland, Ohio — the same Cleveland address as the Burnetta card in this collection, suggesting these postcards may share a common provenance and were sent to the same household.