Serenity flows through this exquisite hand-colored postcard of "Las Tejas," the storied Montecito estate of Oakleigh Thorne, where an Italianate garden canal recedes through razor-edged boxwood parterres toward a graceful balustraded pavilion, cypresses standing sentinel against a blush-and-amber California sky — a scene of horticultural perfection that was among the grandest private gardens in early twentieth-century America. The Albertype Company of Brooklyn, New York — renowned for their superior collotype printing — rendered this image with extraordinary tonal subtlety, the hand-coloring adding warmth to the reflective lily pond and the terracotta hillside beyond. Las Tejas ("the tiles" in Spanish) was developed by the Thorne family in Montecito, the exclusive enclave just east of Santa Barbara that attracted Gilded Age and early twentieth-century wealth seeking California sunshine and Mediterranean ambiance. Published by Osborne's of Santa Barbara, this unused card is a museum-quality artifact of the California country house era.