Today I have a sad, though no less lovely pair of unused Holmfirth mourning postcards, copyright dated 1909. These were found the other day while digging through an enormous, variety box of antique cards, and are quite rare apparently, being hand colored photos of a cemetery and funeral scene on the front, plus gorgeous ornamental nouveau design and lettering on the back in gold. To actually find two that were produced by Holmfirth in numerical order, and even sent from the same person (see two-part inscriptions on the reverse) is also quite a bit of bewildering luck, I must say...
Are you sure this isn't a modern greeting card to cemetery goths? :)
ReplyDeleteOK, the coloring on this is intense. Look at the different variations in the grass (it's possible that the shadows are making most of the shading, though, but if that's all hand colored, that's great work.)
In the second picture, the wall paper and the wreaths, maybe the shading is doing all the work here but still, very cool.
I also like the printing on the back.
Oh my god, I hope you also find the return correspondence soon. I have to know what the writer did to piss Flo and Birdie off so bad. Of course we're all on tenterhooks about Jim, too. What a quirky sense of humor, to complain about all the work one does tending a sick bed on the back of actual funeral cards. I feel like, at some point, these missives were a clue in an investigation.
ReplyDeleteThe front are both beautiful too, of course.
Haha, you did better than me at translating those messages! Were Flo and Birdie the Edwardian era version of Flo and Eddie? Here's hoping for more!
ReplyDeletePoor Jim. The writer probably didn't let him forget that she was spending all her time taking care of him.
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