Postcard Boppard Rheinufer, Ottmar Zieher Munich, early nineteen-twenties

Postcard in Heliokolor colour print depicting the Rheinufer at Boppard, published as a Heliokolorkarte by Ottmar Zieher in Munich under number Z 5719. The composition shows the hotel promenade along the Rhine with its imposing Wilhelmine facades, a tree-lined quay, and on the river two steamships, including a passenger vessel of the Koln-Dusseldorfer Rheinschiffahrt. The caption "Boppard. Rheinufer." appears in red italic in the upper right. The card was posted from Boppard with two Germania stamps of 20 and 60 Pfennig, addressed to Via Nova, Fauquemont in the southern Dutch province of Limburg. Condition is used, with discolouration, some staining on the reverse and light corner wear, the pictorial side remaining fully intact.

Boppard, set within a broad bend of the Middle Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen, developed during the second half of the nineteenth century into a renowned spa town, known for its viticulture, sanatoria, and the daily arrival of Rhine steamships. The stately hotel facades visible on this card belonged to the fixed repertoire of urban views through which Boppard presented itself to the European travelling public. Ottmar Zieher, publisher in Munich, issued under the Heliokolorkarte name an extensive series of richly coloured topographical postcards, recognisable by their saturated chromatic treatment and careful composition. The card's posting to Valkenburg in Limburg forms part of the same cross-border correspondence that Dutch guests maintained with Rhineland destinations in the early interwar period.