Antique & Vintage Postcards

A jolly market woman presides over overflowing baskets of peaches and grapes beneath a parasol in this rare early pre-linen postcard reproducing a mural from the celebrated Frankfurter Ratskeller — the medieval wine cellar beneath Frankfurt's Römer city hall, adorned with monumental wall paintings by artists J. Correggio and Th. Braun around the turn of the twentieth century. The figure, rendered in rich tonal halftone, is all rotund confidence: hands on hips, apron neatly tied, a wide grin that suggests she's heard every haggling offer and rejected them all. Fruit spills from wicker baskets — plump apples, bunches of grapes, a barrel tucked at the lower right — while decorative architectural molding and an inscription reading "Die Dockmärta Märt…" arc overhead, hinting at the Frankfurt market-woman folk character. A purple ink cachet on the reverse reads "Ratskeller, 2tes Stock, Frankfurt" placing this card squarely as a souvenir sold within the establishment itself — a direct piece of Frankfurt civic gastronomy culture, dense with penciled German script on both halves of the undivided-style back.