Hindoe [Hindu]
A rare Dutch lithographic postcard showing what is likely a Rajput prince or warrior. Note the very skillful use of the white background to extend the man's shirt.
A rare Dutch lithographic postcard showing what is likely a Rajput prince or warrior. Note the very skillful use of the white background to extend the man's shirt.
A classic Dhurandhar portrait. The growing metropolis of Bombay with its modern buildings form the backdrop to a fully formed character, in traditional dress, with a quizzical expression on her face. Does she understand what is happening around her?
This postcard actually shows Gohar Jan, India's first gramophone recorded artist (1902) and the most famous singer of her time.
A rare individually hand-painted postcard of a woman with a traditional stone rice grinder, often used to grind rice batter to make South Indian idlis or dosas.
A postcard by the great Indian painter M.V. Dhurandhar illustrating an Englishwoman looking over a coolie offering his services with an empty basket. Note the cleverly positioned Indian woman with a basket on her head in the background.
The message
Perhaps the best known image of the gold-medal winning Indian field hockey team at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, where they won for the second time.
Usually, dancing women were unnamed, even when they become famous (for example, Gohar Jan became a "Bombay beauty"). In this case however perhaps her name or fame justified a different approach, and it was better marketing by the unknown publisher to
A postcard showing Indian workers ("east Indian coolies") brought to work in Jamaica (the "West Indies") to work, part of an enormous migration of Indian labor to British colonies around the world, many of whose descendants are still living in places
Tipu Sultan, perhaps the last formidable ruler the British had to defeat before taking over South India was killed on May 4th, 1799 at the end of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
A hand painted postcard from roughly 1905, many of which like printed postcards illustrated the various labor occupations.