Postcard Beaufort Castle, Petite Suisse luxembourgeoise, Sulzbach Saar ca. 1903

Postcard from the early twentieth century showing a black-and-white phototype of Beaufort Castle in the Petite Suisse luxembourgeoise. The image shows on the right the imposing ruins of the medieval castle with its surviving towers and wall fragments, and on the left the adjoining Renaissance château of 1649, which Johann de Beck had built next to the already ruined old castle. In the foreground two white farmhouses and a large sandstone block on which a small figure stands, serving as a scale reference for the monumental setting. Below the image, the captions "Petite Suisse luxembourgeoise." and "BEAUFORT." Published by Kartonnagen-Fabrik und Kunstdruckerei Sulzbach Saar under number 2941. The verso bears a multilingual header in seven languages with the indication "Schreibraum gültig im inneren deutschen Verkehr", a German regulation which before 1905 stipulated that only the address could appear on the verso, placing this card in the transitional period around 1902 to 1905. The verso is unwritten and unposted. The card is in good condition.

Beaufort Castle dates back to the eleventh century and was enlarged in successive phases to become one of the most imposing medieval castles of Luxembourg. During the Thirty Years' War it was severely damaged and became largely uninhabitable. In 1649 Johann de Beck, Count of Beaufort, had the new Renaissance château built next to the old ruin, choosing explicitly juxtaposition rather than rebuilding, so that both temporal strata would remain visible side by side. The Kartonnagen-Fabrik at Sulzbach in the Saarland was in the first years of the twentieth century among the specialised German houses supplying postcards for the broader European market, and the multilingual header in Czech, Hungarian, Italian, French, German, English and Dutch testifies to the international distribution for which this card was intended.