Horse-drawn carriages clatter past electric trams on the cobblestones of Altona's bustling Rathhausmarkt, captured in razor-sharp photographic detail around 1901 — a city-within-a-city scene that would vanish when Altona was absorbed into Hamburg in 1937. The elevated vantage point reveals white market canopy stalls lining the right-hand buildings, ornate gas lampposts standing sentinel down the boulevard, and the handsome baroque Rathaus (city hall) anchoring the left with its distinctive cupola. This card traveled from brother Franz in Altona to his sister in Bohemia, postmarked 9 May 1901, carrying warm family greetings across the German-Austrian border. The publisher Knackstedt & Näther of Hamburg produced some of the finest photographic urban views of the Wilhelmine era, and this example — card no. 299 — shows their characteristic tonal richness. The message on the front, written in Kurrent script, references "die letzte Karte von Altona" ("the last card from Altona"), adding poignant human resonance to an already historically significant view.