Superlative vintage matte-finish 4.5 x 3.5 candid photo of Einstein wearing an overcoat on a boat, his iconic white mane blowing in the sea breeze, neatly signed and inscribed in fountain pen in German, "Freundlichen gruss…Albert Einstein, 1933.” Affixed to a slightly larger mount and in fine condition, with faint silvering to darker areas of the image. Encapsulated and graded by PSA/DNA as "NM-MT 8."
This image might show Einstein on the SS Belgenland, a ship that he traveled aboard several times. He was on the ship in March 1933, intending to return home to Germany, when he learned the alarming news that the Nazis had ransacked his summer cottage in Caputh. At that point he decided it was too dangerous to return to his homeland. When the ship docked in Antwerp, Belgium, he immediately reported to the German consulate in Brussels, where he turned in his German passport and renounced his citizenship. Einstein returned to America in October 1933, beginning a new life as a member of the faculty of Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study.
