Postcard dogs - Libby Hall

At the turn of the last century a passion for postcard collecting raged through Europe and the United States. By 1910 hundreds of millions of cards were being sent through the post every year. A democracy of picture postcards had captured the imagination of a young century, and as the passion for collecting grew, it became increasingly common to have photographs of the whole family, including dogs, printed as postcards.

Postcard Dogsis a combination of beautiful private photographs and beguiling commercial postcards, circa 1900 to 1940, collected together for the first time. Wildly sentimental images, that in a modern medium might seem sickly and unattractive, become something quite different when looked back at through a hundred intervening years.

Who could resist a dog crying real tears while thinking of his master at the front in World War One, or an Edwardian tea party given for a child's dog?