Never underestimate the variety of subject matter that has been trawled by our picture postcard manufacturers.
And on another slow day, I went back again to the vast collection of picture postcards produced over the years by Raphael Tuck & Sons, who were one of the leading international companies, which are now held on Tuck DB.*
So having wandered aimlessly across the database I came across this one, which was listed as “REGAL BEAUTIES in 1904 POSTCARD”.
It is a depiction of Salome who appears in the history of the Middle East, including one Salome who was responsible for the death of John the Baptist.
All of which took me back to 1966 and my O level in Religious Knowledge, but that is for another time, instead I shall focus on the artist who produced the original image.
This was Raphael Kirchner who one source tells me he was "an Austrian artist, principally a portrait painter and illustrator best known for Art Nouveau and early pin-up work, especially in picture postcard format …… producing over a thousand published paintings and drawings in his lifetime, mostly in the form of picture postcards. His orientalist "Geisha" series was among his most popular, with over 40,000 cards sold.
The series is a notable example of the cross-influence between Art Nouveau in the West and Japanese art of the Meiji and Taishō periods. Kirchner's often mildly erotic paintings of feminine beauty, in convenient postcard and magazine page form, were among the early pin-ups favored by European and American soldiers in World War “.**
And that is about it.
Pictures; Salome, Raphael Kirchner, marketed by Raphael Tuck & Sons, from the series, as REGAL BEAUTIES in 1904 POSTCARD Catalogue, French backs SERIE 241. Della'quila E10-6, Set title from packet of French backed cards, and La Mer Fleurie, Source/Photographer, http://www.firstworldwar.com/photos/kirchner.htm
*Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/
**Raphael Kirchner, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Kirchner
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