A richly painted courtyard frozen in the golden age of European travel — the Alter Hof (Old Court) of Munich glows in warm ochres and slate greys as two women in traditional Bavarian dress chat beside an ornate Renaissance fountain, pigeons scattered at their feet. The distinctive oriel tower — the so-called "Monkey Tower" (Affenturm), rising from the 13th-century Wittelsbach palace — anchors the composition with medieval gravitas, its carved wooden bays catching the afternoon light. Artist Charles Flower rendered this scene for Raphael Tuck's prestigious Oilette series, printed in Berlin with a chromolithographic richness that still commands collector attention today. The back text notes that Duke Ludwig "the Severe" erected portions of this, the oldest palace of the Dukes of Bavaria, in 1253 — a detail that situates these anonymous market-goers in a space that witnessed eight centuries of Bavarian history.