Cotton Cart
Cotton was the product that helped put 19th century Mumbai on the road to becoming one of the world's major cities. The product was celebrated on postcards like this virtual painting.
Animals
Juggler with goat and monkey
An Dhurandhar portrait of a familiar sight on Bombay streets, the multi-tasking juggler. Note once again the soft city backdrop.
Bullock with water-skins & Bhisti. Jaipur
Bullocks and bhistees served an important role in transporting fresh water to city residents.
Ensuring fresh water supply to the residents in a desert region was always difficult.
The Imperial Delhi Durbar
The Delhi Durbar of 1911 was one of the most "postcarded" events of the Raj, and the first time a reigning British monarch, George V and his wife Queen Mary (an avid postcard collector) attended.
Greetings from Bombay
From an early "Greetings from" series by D.M. Macropolo & Co., a renowned Raj tobacconist with retail stores in Kolkata and Mumbai.
Genuine Bull Durham
One of America's most recognized international brands around the turn of the century, this was one of 33 postcards advertising the tobacco firm's product.
Water Bullock
Bullocks that ferried water were called "water bullocks." This colored image by Clifton & Company, one of the earliest mass publishers of postcards in Mumbai (Bombay) was fairly popular, perhaps because of its rich colors.
J. & G. Hagenbeck's Indian Exhibition
In Ali Raza's excellent book Revolutionary Pasts Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Tulika Books, 2022) there is this note from a police report in 1926: "A public meeting was held . . . under the auspices of the Nau Jawan Bharat Sabha to
Bullock Carriage [handwritten]
![Bullock Carriage [handwritten]](https://www.paperjewels.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/slides/bullock-carriage_0.jpg?itok=YmBRS3jf "Bullock Carriage [handwritten]")
A zenana carriage offered veiled transport for women through the city. These single cards are similar to Chinese handmade postcards and are often court-sized with undivided backs, and not often mailed abroad.
A version of this card is postmarked
The Cattle Show at Pushkar, Ajmer
An embossed frame sets off a rare early postcard of what is presumably the famous Pushkar fair, with the colonial perspective of a onetime owner scrawled across the top: "Does not look much like our Cattle Shows."
