Postcard Grottes de Han, Le Pont de la Salle d'Armes, Nels, interwar period

Postcard in sepia collotype depicting Le Pont de la Salle d'Armes in the Grottes de Han-sur-Lesse, published by Nels in Brussels as number 14. Visitors in winter attire cross the bridge while burning torches in the foreground and background pick out the rough rock walls of the cavern. The card is unposted and in good condition, with a fine grain to the paper and a small printing mark along the lower edge.

The caves of Han-sur-Lesse are among the oldest tourist destinations in Belgium and were opened commercially to the public from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Nels, founded by Edouard Nels and later continued by Ern. Thill, became one of the principal Belgian postcard publishers during the first half of the twentieth century, with a catalogue ranging from city views to churches, castles and natural sites. The dramatised torchlight seen on this card belongs to the established visual vocabulary through which the subterranean world of Han was presented to the interwar public.