The mithai-wala was a popular postcard subject; in this composition the textile pattern behind the man gives the image energy even as the man stares somewhere far away.
John & Co., Ceylon was an early 20th‑century commercial postcard and view‑card publisher based in Colombo (and very likely also Kandy), part of the broader trade in photographic and printed views of colonial Ceylon.
[Original] Cingalais Constipation ses Consequences Veritables Grains de Sante ou Docteur Franck, ([For] Constipation and its
consequences. Spirits beneficial to health from Doctor Franck.) [end]
Clifton & Co. published many studio-posed, ethnographic type postcards like this one, made from an albumen print with the firm's title and name inscribed in the negative and visible at the bottom of the frame on this court-sized card.
This apparently one-legged man is being used here to represent a type, but what is most eye-catching is the way the veins in his arms seem so like the cracks in the wall.
A fine portrait by M.V. Dhurandhar of a Gujarati broker. Gujrati brokers played a pivotal role in Bombay's commercial development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A curiously hand-tinted sepia real photo postcard of the great Bengali writer and multi-faceted artist (1861-1941), with pink expertly applied on the inside garment peeking out from below.
A beautiful real photo postcard given the dark curtain between the trees. After 1947 it was renamed Karachi Zoological and Botanical Gardens; it had been called Gandhi Gardens in honor of a visit by Mahatma Gandhi in 1934.
