Tree-lined and unhurried, the Úřední čtvrť (Official Quarter) stretches along Třída Schneburgova in Olomouc — a broad avenue of Secession-influenced villas and civic buildings that capture the confident civic identity of this Moravian city, then still a major Habsburg-era administrative centre, in the early years of the new Czechoslovak Republic; a solitary figure in a red hat stands at the garden gate of an imposing corner villa, lending an intimate human scale to the grand boulevard. Sent on 27 September 1923 from Olomouc with a Czechoslovak 10-heller blue stamp (featuring the distinctive wave/linden-leaf design of the early republic), the card was addressed to one Aug. Messerknecht in Wiesellburg (Niederösterreich, Austria) — a cross-border correspondence that speaks to the intertwined German-speaking communities of the successor states after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. The message is written in a flowing Czech hand.