Petercsák Tivadar: A képes levelezőlap története (Miskolc, 1994)

HISTORY OF PICTURE POSTCARDS

Serb surveyor officer Petar Manoilovich which was decorated with a drawing symbolizing the periodical. The picture postcard was accepted as official postal matter at the Paris International Conference in 1878. In Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy the production of picture postcards was permitted for individuals in 1885. In the last decade of the XlXth century Germany produced the most picture postcards anually 500 million. The German, Swiss, Swedish and French publishers also delivered picture cards abroad. Until the end of the 1890s one side of the picture cards was for addressing and stamping the other side was for the picture and the greeting. As the illustration grew, the text was often written into the picture. Therefore the address side was divided in two in 1905/5 (in England in 1902), and from that time the picture is on the other side of the card. Hungarian picture postcard edition In Hungary the picture postcards were supplied mainly by German and Austrian producers until 1896. The Hungarian Mail edited a millenium series of 32 postcards on the occasion of the millenium celebrations of the Hungarian conquest. The illustrations showed scenes from the millenium exhibition, views of Budapest, other landscapes and historical scenes. The themes of the postcards reflect well the atmosphere of the millenium epoch and what was considered serious enough to show from Hungary's past. The watercolour illustrations for the postcards were painted by the most well-known painters and illustrators of the era - Károly Cserna, Tivadar Dörre, László Kimnach and Pál Vágó. The coloured wood-prints and lithograph prints were made in three printing-houses in Budapest - Posner Son, Pesti Könyvnyomda Rt (Pest Printing Press Ltd) and Morelli. The millenium exhibition was shown on the postcards of several foreign producers. In the last third of the XlXth century bourgeois transformation enabled the middle and lower-middle classes to become more acquainted with the world. The picture card became an expression of mass-culture as a result of its clarity and simple aesthetical appearance. The rapid spread of the picture card can be equated with the improvement of travelling possibilities, tourism and recreation. The development of tourism was supported also by postcards depicting local sights. Postcards showed first the sights of the capital and the major towns, the mountain and sea resorts, and the spas and tourist resorts. Book publishers, the owners of book and paper shops, presses and photographic ateliers dealt mainly with the production and circulation of picture postcards. The panoramic, artistic greeting cards of the famous European producers - Stengel, Edgar Schmidt, Meissner (Dresden); Ziecher Ottmar, A. Ackermann (Munich); Philipp Kramer (Vienna); Raphael Tuck, C. W. Faulkner (London) were also in circulation in Hungary. At the turn of the century the most famous picture postcard producers were the photographer family Divald and Klösz György, and the Kosmos Company. The minor regional presses in the book and tobacco-shops made picture cards relating to the locality in question or its close proximity. Between the World Wars several firms in Budapest - György Monostory, Karinger, Weinstock, Gárdonyi és Fenyvesi - retailed picture cards that were ordered locally. After World War II together with private firms the