Marwari
A moneylender strutting through the public square, carrying the ominous red books he uses to chase debtors through the courts, the vibrant city his backdrop.
Unknown Publisher
Avenue of Trees, Jumna Bridge, Allahabad.
A very nicely shot and coloured canopy of contorted trees. Allahabad was officially renamed Prayag in October 2018.
[Zenana Carriage]
![[Zenana Carriage]](https://www.paperjewels.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/slides/carriage_0.jpg?itok=qY5XcnEW "[Zenana Carriage]")
A hand-painted postcard; given that cards retailed for one anna around this time, maybe two, after materials, one can only imagine how little the bazaar artist was paid.
[Verso handwritten] "Cawnpore [Kanpur]. Dec.
First Glimpse of Bombay Harbour
A rare landscape postcard by M.V. Dhurandhar; the vast majority of the seventy or so postcards he painted during this period were of people. Rajabai Clock Tower is visible on the right.
Brahman
The Brahmin, as the art scholar Allan Life has noted, is reluctantly shuffling from tradition to modernity, from the temple behind him to the new city in front of him.
India, Bombay-Calcutta
An early "Greetings from" concept card, printed in Italy, possibly to market train service between Mumbai and Kolkata, rife with tropes that Europeans would have associated with India: a tiger (stalking the train?
The Museum, Udaipur
A curious card, with the white space in the top corner intended for a written message by the sender before messages were allowed on the backs of postcard after 1905. The original Victoria Hall Museum, opened in 1890, has since moved to the City
Anything You Want on Wheels is at Your Service here
Merton Lacey was an Anglo-Indian comic book artist and animator, based in Kolkata and born in Purulia, India in 1902. This card has a 1945 calendar on the back, and shows troops in the country as part of the Allied effort against the Japanese.
Lessons in Music
Lessons in Music was published around 1905, when Dhurandhar participated in the first Bombay Exhibition, the official medal which he designed and received a Gold Medal for, in addition to other awards.
Bengal Gool Mohor (a Mahomedan Lady)
A highly colourful postcard by the painter M.V. Dhurandhar bringing together a large tree, Delonix regia, with its beautiful ("flaming") red flowers, and a woman, barefoot, seated on its branch.
