Greetings card Heureux Anniversaire, RPH 3288, interwar period

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French-language greetings card bearing a sepia photographic portrait of a young woman in three-quarter view, smiling at a bouquet of daisies held in her hands. The inscription "Heureux Anniversaire" appears in ornamental gold script in the upper left, with the publisher's mark RPH and series number 3288 in the lower right. The composition is printed on satin photographic paper and highlighted by hand with pink and green touches on the flowers and the fabric, in keeping with the practice of early twentieth-century romantic greeting cards. The card was posted from Belgium with two Albert I Montenez stamps of 10 and 5 centimes, addressed to Montigny-sur-Sambre. Condition is used, with edge wear, discolouration, a small tear in the lower right corner and pencil drawings by a child's hand on the reverse.

Romantic portrait cards of this kind were, between roughly 1910 and the late nineteen-twenties, among the most successfully marketed greetings segments in France, Belgium and French-speaking Switzerland, particularly for birthdays, name days and first communions. RPH, short for Rotophot, was one of the principal Berlin publishers of photographic postcards and supplied the francophone market under this mark. The combination of studio photography, handwritten ornamental calligraphy and manual colour retouching formed the standardised visual language through which sentiments of affection, celebration and sentimental loyalty travelled by post. The Belgian franking of 15 centimes corresponds to the domestic tariff of the early nineteen-twenties.