14.00 USD
From most of her readily available images, we'll guess Mlle. Harloff was a Russian opera singer/actress of the Belle Epoque era based in St. Petersburg, but we've not yet found any history on her.
Postcard photo by Leopold Reutlinger of Paris. Circa 1900, this is a little jewel of a postcard.
Often called mignonettes, postcards of this type are the size and shape of bookmarks. This one is less than two inches wide, and a little over 5 and 1/2 inches in length. We're very pleased to have gotten a number of these in the shop this week.
They tend to be uncommon because they never caught on quite like the
standard postcard, and their size and shape probably made them easier to
damage accidentally, or lose in the mails. We found a nice little cache of
them though, and chose these for their beauty and condition.
Because this is an unusual, "sort of" postcard item, we'll list it in our artifacts section.
Another interesting historical aspect to this card is the bit of early commercial
marketing visible on the back side.
Note the bold printed text along the right edge for the candy company Bonbons Barnier of Rouen.
The candy company "Bonbons Suisse" was opened in 1885, Rouen, France, by two brothers, Peter and Marius Barnier.
In 1900, just a short time before our card was printed, the company was purchased by candy wholesaler Eugène Callet, who renamed it "Bonbons Barnier" and probably passed out these mignonette postcards for free with the purchase of a box of candy! The cards might have been purchase incentives, but when mailed off by customers who received them, traveled the land advertizing Bonbons Barnier's candy. That's just good marketing!
Though relatively small by some standards, it seems the company is still a success today in France, its candies exported all over Europe and the UK as well. What we learned about them indicates that they use the same fine ingredients today as they did in 1900, and follow basically the same recipes for some of their original flavors of boiled candy. They can be found online, and their selection of Easter candies is really charming!!
The business is apparently run today by descendants of Raymond Renou, who became a partner of Monsieur Callet's following WWI.
Clearly, we need to purchase some of these original recipe Bonbons Barnier candies to employ as aids in our time traveling experiments! The more senses authentically involved in our awareness of the projected time and place at the moment our time machine engages, the more successful the experiment...but that's another story :)
A very nice card! Please examine our high res scans for detail.
The item you are considering for purchase is a vintage mignonette postcard of approximately 5 and 3/4, by 1 and 3/4 inches. Postage is for fully-insured, first class shipping in a secure photo mailer (to avoid any damage to your purchase in the mails), and we happily combine shipping on all paper goods. If you purchase two cards, we will not charge for postage on the second card, and when you purchase three or more cards from us at the same time, your shipping will be entirely free, except for international orders which, because of increases in international shipping rates will still be charged one card's shipping fees on orders of three or more. We do not charge for insurance or shipping materials, and as of the date of this listing are still charging below our overall cost on shipping.
And please come visit our blog at:
redpoulaine.blogspot.com
where we post biographical and historical tidbits, images of cards and photographs for sale, some already sold but remembered fondly, related images of historical interest and sometimes even images of items that have not yet arrived in the shop, but that are expected to arrive soon, as well as coupon codes, links to other related sites, and more!