Please Return to Mr. Goldstein

New Orleans architect Moise H. Goldstein (1882-1972), like many of his contemporaries, traveled to Europe in his early adulthood. Along the way, he acquired an extensive collection of studio photographs of architecture, sculpture and furnishings. The black and white photographs were typically captioned and mounted to canvas by such studios as Alinari, Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG) and Brogi.

Goldstein wrote instructions along the margins of Romualdo Moscioni's (1849-1925) image of one of the classical tripods in the Vatican Museums (top). Sometimes his drawings bear the same instructions, "Please return to M.H. Goldstein."

The bottom image proves enigmatic -- some of the caricatures are clearly architects. Did Goldstein pen them or someone else?

Images above: Moise Goldstein Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.