Art postcard to Violet

If you didn't get any of those "original" art postcards sold to help fund a certain marketing, er, Art school, you might enjoy (free!) this charming card below, from a book of wonders called Priceless Pictures from the remarkable NSW Government Printing Office Collection 1870-1950, published by Stateprint, (Sydney), New South Wales (Australia), 1988.


The words say
Top left: "How to tell the animals from wild flowers."
Bottom left: A DANDY LION.
Top right: 12 - 10 - 03
Mid right: "Down in a green and shady street, A Modest Violet lived."
Bottom right: I've forgotten the rest.

This postcard, like the ones sold in that fundraiser, isn't doing what postcards were originally meant to do – communicate something in words to the addressee, with a little something extra in the way of a picture thrown in.

The fundraiser postcards, certified and classified, aren't communication. They're Art. Miniatures for collectors, and way too valuable to be sent to someone else.

This subversive postcard, on the other hand, is way too delightful to have been solely a joy to the addressee. One can only imagine the numbers of hands this passed through on its way to lucky Violet.

As for its artist, although it is unsigned, that IS its signature, the invisible stamp of the immortal: Anonymous

And that leads to another irresistible from the Priceless Pictures collection:

This is also by Anonymous. Yes, I know the style is different, but Anonymous is as versatile as a conman.