Knife Grinder
One can see the rapid transformation of the postcard from a time when messages where only allowed on the front, as in this card.
Mumbai Bombay
General Post Office, Calcutta
This postcard was sent from Calcutta in April 1905 to Mr. H.G. Squier, "Actg. [Acting?] P. M. [Postmaster?], Manila, P.I. [Philippine Islands]": "4/28/05 Leave today overland by rail to Bombay. Lytton [sp?]."
An Indian Rajah
This unnamed Rajah was a popular postcard subject, in color and black and white. Note how well the image was colorized during the half-tone printing process which had just started to become more widely used for postcards based on photographs.
Shah Alum's Tomb, Ahmedabad
This tomb to one of the most revered of Muslim religious teachers in Gujarat was completed in the late 15th century.
View From Malabar Hill, Bombay
Clifton & Co., the first big Bobby-based publisher had numerous versions of this card. This keyhole-style view – a briefly popular postcard type – works well with the curve of what is now Marine Drive opening out towards the waters of Back Bay.
An Indian Bungalow
Postmarked Seapost Office [Bombay] April 1906, received in Manchester April 28, and addressed to Miss. L. Swill [sp?] in Manchester, England with this note on the front: "What price this for a couple."
Bombay Beauty
Around the turn of the century, women of Bombay were on the cutting-edge of popular fashion, photographed in studio settings like this one and extensively postcarded.
Taj Mahal Hotel. Bombay.
The Mexican Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz has a nice description of coming upon the Taj Mohal Hotel by ship for the first time in the early 1950s: "Behind the monument [India Gate], floating in the warm air, was a silhouette of the Taj Mahal
A Fair Musician
Among the Paul Gerhardt postcards published by The Ravi Varma Press, this seems to be one of the rarer ones. Postally used in Glasgow, Scotland on Nov.
Europeans Travelling on the Palanquin
A very early postcard most likely drawn by lithographer Paul Gerhardt and printed at The Ravi Varma Press, although this is not certain and is based on its similarity to other signed Gerhardt postcards in its use of leaves and trees and background.
