This postcard actually shows a young Gohar Jan (right) and her mother Malka Jan, both famous dancers and singers. Gohar Jan was the first recorded Indian artist, by the Gramophone company in 1904. She can be heard on YouTube.
This image was used
An early view of what is now The Asiatic Society. John Murray's Handbook for Travelers in India Burma and Ceylon (1938) has this description of what was once the Town Hall:
"The Town Hall, designed by Col. T.
Around the turn of the century, women of Bombay were on the cutting-edge of popular fashion, photographed in studio settings like this one and extensively postcarded.
The Mexican Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz has a nice description of coming upon the Taj Mohal Hotel by ship for the first time in the early 1950s: "Behind the monument [India Gate], floating in the warm air, was a silhouette of the Taj Mahal
Galtaji is an ancient set of Hindu temples built into rocky hills near Jaipur, nicely captured in this rich early collotype by one of the first all-India postcard publishers.
A storied building, still standing, which was everything from a Governor's residence to Admiralty House and the first High Court of Bombay.
It seems as if the Mughal Emperor Jehanghir's (1569-1627) fondness for wine merited a postcard many centuries later.
A quick glance at this postcard might make you think it is a European city, but it is actually a street in Mumbai with the Cathedral of the Holy Name, the seat of the Archbishop of Bombay. Opened in 1902, it was new around the time of this postcard.
[Original caption] Shantanu is trying to persuade Satyavati, the adopted daughter of a fisher, to marry him, & thus to satisfy his passionate desire. [end]
Kanpur, known as Cawnpore before 1948, is one of the larger cities in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Once mainly a cantonment town, and scene of much fighting in 1857, today it is an important industrial center.
