Wish you were here? Vintage Malta postcards from the art world

Prominent passenger-ship companies started promoting their business by the issue of postcards and posters from late Victorian times.

The picture-side of these cards often made use of photography but others relied on artwork by professional graphic designers.

A Malta postcard by James Greig (1961-1941) for the P&O passenger ship company.

A Malta postcard by the Ellermann & Hall line by an unidentified artist.

Malta can count itself very fortunate as, overall, the cruise liner postcards depicting the island reach truly extraordinary pictorial heights.

Early art postcard of Valletta and Grand Harbour by the Hamburg-Amerika Linie

P&O used the same Malta artwork by William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931) to promote three different passenger ships: 'Mooltan', 'Mongolia' and 'Moldovia'.

Our art encyclopaedias have already recorded some of the painters, like the British Kenneth Shoesmith, Frank Mason, William Lionel Wyllie and Albert Hugh Fisher, and the German Max Rabes, all highly gifted professional artists. But others come as total surprises, never noted before.

Malta postcard by Max Rabes (1868-1944) for Levante-Linie

Postcard of SS 'Arpad' by Albert Hugh Fisher (1867-1945) for the Adria Shipping Co, used in 1904.

I was thrilled to identify out­standing, but overlooked, names like Guido Grimani, Odin Rodens­vinge, James Greig and Giulio Cisari among those who painted or engraved splendid harbour scenes of Malta, used in postcards of passenger ships.

Though Grand Harbour served as the home base for the mighty British Mediterranean fleet and was then far better known for that function than as a tourist terminal, not one of these postcards includes a warship in the composition.

One of five Malta postcards by Kenneth Shoesmith (1890-1939) for the Royal Mail Co.

This must have been a deliberate omission – to project Malta as a haven of peace and relaxation and, at most, of exotic interest, rather than of war, destruction and death.

The company to which the liner belonged could be identified from afar by the colours on her funnels.

Were any of the artists who painted the Malta scenes present on the island? Information remains very scarce.

The cruise liner 'Almanzora' of the Royal Mail in Malta. Postcard by Kenneth Shoesmith

I would hazard that Shoesmith, who has at least five cruise-liner postcards with vivid Malta scenes, would have painted what he actually saw but, so far, that remains guesswork. 

A Malta Royal Mail postcard, ‘Boatmen’ unsigned, but attributed to Kenneth Shoesmith.

A Kenneth Shoesmith postcard of RMS Atlantis in Malta for the Royal Mail.

Another Kenneth Shoesmith postcard, again of RMS Atlantis, for the Royal Mail Co.

A Malta postcard by Guido Grimani (1871-1933) for the Austro-Americana of Trieste, used in 1913.

Interwar postcard of Malta, by Giulio Cisari (1892-1972) for the Crociere in Oriente

Grimani, on the other hand, passed through the island in 1927 but his stunning Malta postcards promoted the Trieste shipping line Austro-Americana at least since 1913.

All postcards from the author’s collection

'SS Seriality' in Malta, by Frank Mason (1876-1965) for Everard & Sons, 1930s