Romance on Vacation

Are you and your lover getting bored of dates by the same old stairs and balustrades? Why not venture farther afield, to new views and new types of railings to make out against!

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A Pierrot Romance

You may recall my "Harlequin romance" postcard from a few months ago; if not, do check it out, it is really something. However, the use of the Commedia dell'Arte look did not end there. These postcards take up a Pierrot theme-- interestingly, using the same two models and backdrop as the Harlequin card. 

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 Those semi-circular dents by her head are indentations from the postmark. 

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Say It With Flowers

It seems like the creators of these postcards believed women loved three things: bright colours, adoring men, and flowers. And oh, did they like flowers. I think there are probably more uncoloured cards and cards without men than there are cards without flowers. Once you notice, you can't stop noticing. Large bouquets are omnipresent, even when they are completely out of place in the scene, like, for instance, on a secluded rocky beach:

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I guess she loved them so much she carried them on their hike?

History: The Late 1930s

When did this kind of postcard cease to exist? The answer, as with most questions of culture and history, isn't clear-cut. French postcards with photographic images of happy couples continued to be made into the 1960s, with hand-tinted examples at least into the 1940s. However, the "look" is quite different, even putting aside fashion (I currently don't own any examples from later than about 1940, but I may post on these descendants sometime in the future). Though for simplicity I generally call my cards "1920s postcards", they were absolutely being made into the 1930s, with some of the most stunning examples dating from early years of that decade. I don't have outside research for dates, and the date a card was written/mailed does not neccessarily mean the card was made that year (I've mailed 100 year old cards myself!), but I have a large enough sample size to see some trends. The number of these cards mailed between 1924 and 1933 is fairly constant; after 1934, it drops off significantly, with only a couple mailed after that year. At the same time, a different "look" of card starts to become common.  From the mid to late 1930s, uncoloured cards are common, while they are rare in the preceding period. Tinting still exists but is much more subtle. Dye-toning disappears entirely. The most common models from the 1920s and early 1930s are no longer seen. Matte photographic paper gives way to glossy. Deckle-edges are sometimes used. There are less publishing houses in the market, though leader PC Paris continues in force. Why these changes occurred I don't know; perhaps it may have been affected by economic depression, although the fanciest postcards I own come from the early 1930s. I suppose the ultimate answer is probably a simple "that's the way trends go."

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History: The Early 1920s

All right, back to the history! So, as we saw, there were precedents to these 1920s cards in the preceding decades-- lovely women and loving couples carefully posed, hand-tinted or dyed with bright colours. However, there is still significant visual difference between this, from 1915:

and this, from 1924:

How did they go from one to the other? 

So far my answer, I'll admit, is incomplete. World War One definitely accelerated changes in society, as we can see in some of the poses on postcards, and the differences between 1914 and 1924 certainly go far beyond postcards. I suspect the taste for bright colours we see in the 1920s and early 1930s cards was affected by other cultural factors; indeed I've read that the 20s saw something of a "craze for colour." 

I do, however, have some visuals to fill in the gap. These postcards were sent between 1920 and 1923 by a fellow called Victor to his girlfriend Pauline. Though they were sent in Luxembourg, they are made in France. I find them interesting because the images are still very similar to those of the 1900s and 1910s, but the colouring is more in line with what we see in the 1920s-- the brightness and the airbrushed spots of colour. My sample size is small and based on the taste of one couple, but still it is interesting to see the progression. 

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This card bears the mark of publishing house PC Paris, the most prominent publisher of these cards through the 1920s and 1930s. The numbers they assign to cards appear to be at least roughly in chronological order; 60 is the lowest I've seen (and the date of this card--1920--is also the earliest I've seen for a PC Paris card). 

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By 1922, Victor was sending cards with that familiar 1920s look:

The Erased Message

I find these two postcards very intriguing.... both have clearly been written, and subsequently totally, intentionally erased (on the actual object the eraser marks are even clearer--the paper has been worn away in parts). I suppose we'll never know the stories behind them, though my personal suspicion is that things didn't work out....

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The date can just be made out--1924. 

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Beneath a Golden Sky

One more digression before getting back into the history: this stunning pair of "sister" cards painted over with a Japanese-inspired background and gold-coloured paint. Like many "sisters" from the same photoshoot, the tinting style is the same between them but there is a colour variation. So far I've only seen a few examples of this kind of card, where a background or shapes are painted onto the card after printing (always including gold-colouring), but they're pretty great. 

The message on this one is sweet-- it is a brother and sister wishing their brother happy birthday. 

Art Deco Beauty

A couple more posts on the history of these cards are upcoming, but I'm so enamoured of a recent couple acquisitions I just had to interrupt.

Three sister cards, depicting a lovely young woman against a striking Art Deco background... two pink, the last an incredible, tinted, metallic that blows me away. I just love the composition, the flowers, the geometric background, the gauzy shawl around her shoulders... and, on that last one, oh, the tinting...!

(I have this one thanks to an amazing friend who gave it to me from her collection after I found the others.. aw!)

This is the same image as the first one, but printed on  metallic paper and processed with a pink-orange dye, then hand-tinted with an exceptional amount of colour and care. 

I just adore the writing on the front, too. This is one of my current favourite favourites. 

This is dated 1937, but I strongly suspect it was made around 1932. The publishing house PC Paris seems to date their cards in the order of creation, and I have others around and after this number from 1932 and 1933. A store or individual probably had it around in the interim.