Lithograph

The GPO in Bombay was already the largest post office in India when this card was produced in 1899, with tens of millions of postcards passing through in a city of less than a million.

Over a million Indian troops served as part of the British forces in World War I; postcards were used to help recruit them, often in languages like Gujarati, though this card seems to have been intended more for British troops already serving in

A very early India-printed postcard signed by the chief lithographer at the Ravi Varma Press, Paul Gerhardt. Gerhardt was probably aware of Ravi Varma's prize-winning painting that year, Water Bearer, and we know from Raja Varma's diaries - the great

Many of the earliest postcards were actually advertising cards, given the expense of producing lithographic cards like this French view of a 17th century Nawab and son. The woman in the back holds a nautch girl's pose.