33.00 USD
Wonderfully surreal offering by ELD. This is one of several well known "memento moris" in the surreal, metamorphic, or arcimboldesque (after the Italian renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo), style. Many will have seen later representations of this one, and of another, of a lady at her vanity, in the form of art prints and posters. We have seen a German edition of this same card published by Paul Fink of Berlin at about the same time (probably 1905-1910)
The artwork was very probably French, the card's title, "Tete de Mort," or Death-head in English.
Ernest Louis Désiré le Deley (1859 - 1917), the man behind ELD, called himself the "Grand Comptoir de la Cartes Postales Illustrée" (The Grand Dealer of illustrated postcards!) His offices were at 127 Boulevard Sebastopol in Paris. ELD was known for producing beautiful postcards and here we have a lovely one!
Following Monsieur le Deley's death in 1917, the company was taken over by his son, but after the First World War, the postcard industry never quite regained its importance to people, the world had just sped up, changed a little too much. ELD was one of many postcard producers that didn't last beyond the twenties. In our listing images though, we have a couple of postcard images of his business as it was during the golden age of the postcard. These are not for sale (they are not even our cards!) but they give us a wonderful idea of the time and place :)
Very nice condition on this lovely, if a little creepy, "memento mori." Please examine our high res scans for detail.
Postage is for first class shipping in a secure photo mailer, and we happily combine shipping on all paper goods. If you purchase two cards, we will refund the 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 sudden increases in international shipping rates will still be charged one card's shipping fees on orders of three or more.