Framed by a breathtaking canopy of pink Japanese cherry blossoms in full peak bloom, the Lincoln Memorial shimmers in golden twilight across the glassy Tidal Basin in this gorgeous hand-colored linen-era card — one of the most iconic views in American postcard history, captured here by Washington D.C. photographer E. L. Crandall. The cherry trees, gifted by the municipality of Tokyo while Yukio Ozaki was mayor, transformed the Mall into a springtime spectacle each year, and cards like this one were snapped up by the thousands by wartime and postwar tourists. The back text notes that the memorial is "modeled after a classic Greek Temple," and the reverse carries the catalog number 1A-H83 and is credited to the B. S. Reynolds Co. of Washington, D.C. — a prolific publisher of capital-city souvenir cards through the mid-twentieth century. Unused and bright, this is the quintessential Washington spring image.