Hornberg is a town in the Black Forest in the region of Ortenaukreis in Germany. It is the 30th December 1903 and Albert Kiefer, his portrait bordered by exuberant art nouveau orchids, is writing to his friend Emil Geiger-Frey in Schopfheim, sending him good wishes for the future...
Three years earlier, on the 18th December 1900, another man is writing from Krefeld near Düsseldorf to his friend Arthur Zorn in Chemnitz in Saxony. His missive arrives at its destination on the 20th December - coincidentally, my birthday. Although it is difficult for me to make out any of the text, despite my seven years of school-taught German, I can read what is written in pencil by his photograph - and it makes for intriguing reading too.
Pencilled vertically, alongside his raincoat, it says, in French, "Je suis que je suis" or, as Gloria Gaynor put it, I am what I am.
Let's hope Arthur got the message.
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