Mumbai Bombay

Sawing Timber

Sawing Timber

Timber was mostly used as a building material and for making furniture. Power tools and machines are available to make life easier for carpenters today, but a century ago, specialized workmen plying their trade were a popular postcard theme.

Radha-Vilas

Radha-Vilas

[Original caption] A love scene between Radha and her consort Lord Krishna. [end]

Lord Krishna spent his earlier life in Vrindavan where the Gopis or cow-herd girls offered him company. Radha was considered the chief gopi.

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

A portrait of Tagore published three years after his death. In Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson's excellent biography of this great man (Bloomsbury, 1995), there appears this translation of this poignant poem:

Karma (The Worker), 1896

No sign of my

Parsi Ladies

Parsi Ladies

One of the most popular early postcards of Parsees was this arresting composite portrait by Clifton & Co. The original albumen likely dates to the late 1890s.

Fisher Woman

Fisher Woman

An early postcard and theme of Bombay artists, the fisher woman, with a basket of fish on her head. A fishing vessel is in the background, its mast at an angle which adds energy to her pose.

Sir J. N. Tata

Sir J. N. Tata

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

Hindu Beauty

Hindu Beauty

A lithographic card, most likely done by an Indian artist and printed in Britain. Note how nicely the woman is foregrounded from a low angle, with a smaller temple in the background and a swirl of green that helps give life to the portrait.

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