June 20, 1901 · Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen · Breakfast
Breakfast at sea on June 20 would have been late spring weather — relatively calm North Atlantic crossings. The full breakfast menu of the period was structured for unhurried morning dining: passengers might spend an hour at table reading the ship’s daily newspaper (printed overnight aboard) before going up to the promenade deck.
The cover uses cool blue and grey tones throughout — sky, sea, and ship rendered in a limited palette that suggests open-ocean visibility under thin overcast. This kind of atmospheric restraint marks the watercolour as more painterly than purely commercial.
NDL’s June 20, 1901 menus correspond closely to the launch of the Kronprinz Wilhelm at the Vulcan yard in Stettin — June 1901 was a moment of intense activity for the company. Each menu from the period now carries an extra association with NDL’s express-era peak.
Visual style: Cool-toned watercolour with the company’s signature steamship vignette.
What you receive
- Three print sizes: 8×10, 11×14, 16×20 inches (300 DPI, ready for any home printer or framing shop).
- Two versions of each size: a pure print (no added text) and a museum print (with a small caption: restaurant or ship, year, and source).
- A 1–2 page PDF with the menu’s historical context.
- One ZIP file, instantly downloadable after checkout.
About the source
This menu is preserved in the Buttolph Collection of Menus at The New York Public Library and is in the public domain in the United States. The Menu Press has curated, digitally restored, and reformatted the work for modern printing.
