Two courtship drawings posted across New York in January 1903, signed ‘Cte Maurice de Dombasle’.

The signer is very probably Maurice Garreau-Dombasle, who resigned from the French Embassy in 1940 and became de Gaulle’s representative in New York.

GARREAU-DOMBASLE, Maurice (attributed). Two original pen and blue ink drawings on United States one-cent postal cards, each signed and inscribed ‘Cte Maurice de Dombasle’ to Miss Pauly M. de Lacoste. New York, 23 and 26 January 1903.

2 postal cards (approximately 82 x 140 mm), addressed on the stamped sides to 373 West 116th Street, New York, and postmarked 23 and 26 January 1903, with added 2-cent and 1-cent adhesives (light soiling).

Notes

A pair of courtship cards. On the first a young woman in a plumed hat reaches for the stars above a bar of music headed “For I am the girl from Mars”, and the writer asks “Why shouldn’t we spend our honeymoon in Mars!”. On the second, a young woman waits at a settee, and the inscription tells ‘ma chère Pauly’ not to despair because ‘he’ will soon come. The signer is very probably Maurice Garreau-Dombasle, later commercial attaché at the French Embassy in Washington, who resigned in 1940 and became de Gaulle’s representative in New York.

Light soiling. Very good.

References

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1935, vol. I, doc. 283, and 1939, vol. II, doc. 438.

Offered by Atelier Zweig LLC. Shipped insured, with signature on delivery.