April 29, 1900 · S.S. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse · Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen · Breakfast
April 1900 places this menu in the prime of the Kaiser Wilhelm’s express career, three years into her record-breaking run and still the fastest ship in the world. Breakfast aboard the express liners during this period was substantial: hot cereals, eggs, breakfast meats, fish, breads, fruit, and coffee — served by white-jacketed stewards from a single extended seating.
The watercolour cover shows a rocky coastline with cliffs rising from the sea — consistent with an English Channel or Cornish coast view. The painting style is academic European marine landscape of the late nineteenth century. The NDL identification is in script across the top.
The S.S. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, launched 1897, was Germany’s first true express liner and the first ship to break Britain’s long-held monopoly on the Atlantic Blue Riband. Her four funnels arranged in two pairs became an iconic silhouette of the express era. Built at the Vulcan yard in Stettin, she was 14,349 gross tons and could cross the Atlantic in five and a half days. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 she was converted to an auxiliary cruiser and sunk off the African coast within weeks.
Visual style: Watercolour coastal landscape with shoreline cliffs and sea.
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.
