Women

An impressive studio shot that lays bare the artifice used to make these images work: the painted backdrop with visible border, the matching design shoes and carpet, the desk or piano the woman's arm is resting on, surrounded by an oval frame common…

Plate & Co. in Colombo dominated the postcard trade on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and sold half a million postcards in 1907 alone, an enormous sum for a single publisher.

A rare image of a pregnant woman (or is she just waiting?), posing in a studio, with an abundance of real vegetation surrounding her.

[Verso, handwritten] "Oct. 24, 1915. My dear Annie, Do you think you could play this instrument? The music is very weird but I suppose they think it is nice. I don't!

One of the more elaborately framed and coloured portraits of a nautch girl. Her priceless expression, the jewelry that is only lightly tinted and for that seems more real, the yellow shawl and powder blue all suggest the hand of a master stencil…

Usually, dancing women were unnamed, even when they become famous (for example, Gohar Jan became a "Bombay beauty").

Dhurandhar and other J.J. School students spent so much time sketching at the beach on Marine Drive, they could hardly have failed to pick-up a sight like this. The daughter in Parsee Ladies at Seaside is even more Westernized than her mother.

A beautiful example of colorization, with the rich brown of wood and skin set off against the black and white original studio backdrop. On the back, one owner has pencilled in "Hindu Bourgeois."

Parsi women were a popular subject—progressive women with traditional virtues, counterpoints to the nautch girl. This Parsi Lady is holding what could be a postcard.

Another example of Dhurandhar's virtuosity as a painter, with the forest of trees and white flowers lending vibrancy to woman in the foreground.