Gangavataran
[Original caption] Shankar receives the river Ganga on his head in compliance with the prayers of Bhageeratha. [end]
This image is from a famous painting by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), one of India's most important painters.
Mumbai Bombay
Bori Bunder Station
Postmarked 22 March 1905 in Bombay, and April 18 1905 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Addressed to “H. H. Rogers Esq. Konupa Makme-Kopunuka, Odessa South Russia-in-Europe." [Recto] “Magnificent station but far too big for requirements.” Today it is the
A Trysting Place
An extremely rare early postcard by an little-known lithographer, W. Cooper, in Bombay. It looks to crude to have been made at The Ravi Varma Press. Cooper seemed to prefer risque images.
Plague Patients.
Illustrated postcards actually came to Mumbai at an inauspicious moment.
Scene of the Hooghly, Calcutta.
Handwritten on the back is a part of a longer message that discusses the plague then present in Bombay: “A poor soldier got it but recovered a Sergeant’s child died of it & Major Murray has been very ill and is only a little better.
Karli Caves
An early court-sized postcard by Paul Gerhardt, chief lithographer at The Ravi Varma Press in - yes - Karli, outside Bombay. The firm moved its premises here in the late 1890s.
Gajagauri
[Verso] Gaja-Gauri :- Goddess Parwati. [end]
From a painting by Raja Ravi Varma, Parvati is the Hindu goddess of fertility, love, beauty, marriage, children, devotion, divine strength and power.
[Karla Station]
![[Karla Station]](https://www.paperjewels.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/slides/karla-station_0.jpg?itok=ktTgi9Gt "[Karla Station]")
This postcard shows a scene at the platform of Karla railway station outside Mumbai where The Ravi Varma Press was headquartered. On the platform, a barefoot man is holding a stick, another is smoking a hookah.
Road Sweeper
This finely lithographed card by Clifton & Co. was one of the their most popular images, and produced in multiple black and white formats. Originally from a photograph, this colored version would have required multiple print runs.
Jumma Masjid Bombay
Another exuberant, deftly rendered very early postcard by Paul Gerhardt, chief lithographer at the Ravi Varma Press in Bombay. Note the simply drawn mosque minarets, the colors that pull you in while the cart pushes out into the foreground space.
