Postman
A portrait of the man who made the postcard revolution possible. While the original for this may have been a photograph of an actual postman, the broad strokes make it possible that a painted portrait was used as the source.
A portrait of the man who made the postcard revolution possible. While the original for this may have been a photograph of an actual postman, the broad strokes make it possible that a painted portrait was used as the source.
This was a very popular view of what is now MG [Mahatma Gandhi] Road in Secundarabad/Hyderabad.
The "father of Indian industry." Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (1839-1904) was born in Gujarat and graduated from Elphinstone College in Mumbai in 1858. He founded and sold a successful trading firm, and then built a successful cotton mill that since
This unusual real photo postcard seems to show recruiting in Jhelum, a key Punjabi district where British Indian soldiers were signed up for service in World War I.
It was not just European and American tourists who came to India; this unusual postcard shows a Japanese traveler on a camel with the guide helpfully holding up a Japanese flag. The camel bags still have English names on them though.
An unusual portrait of a dancing girl, simply dressed, with her hands above her head, against a flattened studio backdrop, probably in Mumbai.
An exquisite Dhurandhar portrait, this of a widow framed in front of a tree and a temple in the background. Orthodox widows were normally not permitted to remarry and had to obey strict dress codes like not wearing a blouse under her sari.
Lascars were sailors, mostly from the subcontinent, serving on European ships that sailed the world and who spoke their own multinational tongue, "Lascari." Throughout the 16th through 19th centuries many landed in Britain and America, with a few
Another Dhurandhar postcard masterpiece, with the pale green background and statue of Lord Mahavir, the last Tirthankara of the Jain religion setting off the living priest in the foreground.
A postcard depicting hospitals in Mumbai used to treat some of the Indian troops who fought in World War I as part of the British Army.