I collect Belle Époque postcards of actresses, dancers, and courtesans. I thought I’d share a few here.

Belle Époque postcard. Image of a beautiful brunette in Marian blue, her hair a bouquet of curls and daisies.

Caption: Mlle Lantelme. Geneviéve Lantelme, a French stage actress, was the toast of Paris circa 1908, renowned for her beauty, bisexuality, and insolent slouch.

Within this postcard, she breaks free of the stage. Framed for an instant and forever by forest, she grows in the imagination.

Unstamped, unsent.

Belle Époque photo postcard. Unstamped but far travelled.

The dancer rests against a tree, nearly undone by jewels. Don’t get me wrong: They’re striking baubles. But they balloon her bosom, and, paired with her busted-in waist, make her structurally unsound. Maybe the gems or even her breasts will lift off someday, breaking for the sky. Or perhaps some weights are worth bearing.

Caption: Otero. Her every striptease scatters jewels to the wind.

Belle Époque postcard. If there were a caption: Cléo de Mérode.

She has the terrible beauty of a virgin martyr. Her eyes give a perfect impression of innocence—but they are not innocent. They are haunted, which is just to say a decade on the right side of haggard.

Her gaze travels heavenward, searching for her lost beloved like the maiden in the Song of Songs, or perhaps just a hot meal. She could use one. You can’t see her waist in this photograph, but trust me, she could pass through the eye of a needle.

She’s the sovereign of Belle Époque hairstyles and the bane of European royalty. In between dancing on pagodas and seducing kings, she gives herself in photographs.

Black-and-blue stamp on front, dated 1907.

A postcard of Anna Pavlova, lady of grace.

The collector sees her postcards as extensions of herself, the beauties of each rectangle reflecting and extending her own like a late afternoon shadow. So this postcard itself is grace, the gift of God’s perfection.

In it, Anna stands en pointe casually, as a mortal girl would lean against a countertop. Defying gravity is nothing to her, nor spinning out the tulle of time.

Her costume is snow and cold. Yet her face is warm, her eyes come-hither. As it turns out, the ballerina famed for her ethereality is a bit of a minx. Surprisingly playful. How fitting, because grace is always entwined with surprise, and vice versa.

As elegant as her pose is the fact that the first ballerina to tour the world still does, after death, in the form of such postcards, which circulate the globe, passing from fan to fan.