Antique & Vintage Postcards

Painted in the luminous watercolour style of Jaroslav Šeteiljka, the rooftops of Hradčany and Malá Strana dissolve into a blaze of orange and violet at dusk, the silhouette of St. Vitus Cathedral rising like a gothic crown above the fog-softened Vltava — a view from Bellevue that distills Prague's romantic mystique into a single, breathtaking image that would have stirred deep patriotic feeling among Czech nationalists in the years surrounding the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic. Published in Series III by MK (likely Melantrich or a contemporary Prague house), this unused art postcard belongs to the celebrated Pražské akvarely Jaroslava Šetelijky (Prague Watercolours of Jaroslav Šeteiljka) series, bilingual in Czech and French — Část Hradčan a Malé Strany z Bellevue / Une Partie de Hradčany et du Petit Côté prise de Bellevue — a series prized today by collectors of Czech art cards and Prague topographica alike.