Antique & Vintage Postcards

Trams glide past pedestrians in Edwardian dress as the medieval Powder Tower stands sentinel beside Prague's breathtaking Municipal House (Obecní dům) in this vibrant chromolithographic artist-drawn postcard — a captured moment from the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when Prague was still Bohemia's crown jewel within the Habsburg realm. The artist, whose monogram "A. Ondrů" appears at lower right, renders the Municipal House's Art Nouveau mosaic lunette and green copper dome with painterly flair, the golden details glowing against a theatrical sky. The Obecní dům, completed in 1912, was built on the site of the Royal Court and became the spiritual heart of Czech national culture — it was here that Czechoslovak independence was proclaimed on 28 October 1918. The card was mailed from Praha on 25 July (postmarked "25.VII") and carries a 5-Heller Franz Joseph stamp, addressed to a young woman named Anna, "Oberlehrers-Tochter" (schoolmaster's daughter), in Ehsenbach, Post Schwarzenau. The sender, Karl, writes warmly of missing her.