Newark is the largest city in New Jersey and was, in the first had of the 20th century, a thriving center of industry, commerce, and transportation.
Many of the great homes and mansions have now vanished, but some monuments to the city’s wealth have endured.
One of the most unusual is the enormous “Colleoni Statue” which stands in Newark’s Lincoln Park.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark,_New_Jersey
In 1916, a prosperous German master-brewer in Newark, Christian W. Feigenspan, sought to endow a great work of art to beautify the city and encourage civic pride in the citizenry.
Accordingly, Feigenspan asked John Cotton Dana (Founder of the Newark Museum) and John Massey Rhind (sculptor) to suggest a suitable work of art for the brewer to endow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_William_Feigenspan
For reasons entirely unknown, the chosen monument was to be a replica of a statue that stands in Venice, Italy.
The figure on horseback is Bartolomeo Colleoni, an exiled nobleman who became a mercenary warrior and was hired to fight on both sides of the armed conflict between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan.
Colleoni is considered the greatest military strategist and tactician of the 15th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeo_Colleoni
The statue in Venice was erected as part of the agreement between Colleoni and the Venetians.
(The original work was created by the famed Italian sculptor, Verrocchio.)
An architectural archive of equestrian statues amplifies the mystery about the selection of this statue:
“There are no descendants of the Colleoni family in Newark, nor was there a large colony of Venetian immigrants in Newark at any time.”
Nonetheless, the statue was completed and erected on the tall Romanesque foundation in 1916.
https://www.newarkhistory.com/colleoni.html
This postcard photograph was made sometime around 1935.
The postcard was published by Greeting Cards Inc. of Newark.
The printing is the work of “Colourpicture Publications” of Boston.
One assumes that the postcard was collected by some lover of fine art or as a souvenir of the city of Newark.
