Grand Oriental Hotel Colombo
Tea was one of those commodities that benefitted from the marketing that came with postcards, going back to the late 1890s.
Divided back
A Rajput
A very early lithographic card, published by Gobindram Oodeyram, likely printed in India.
Veddahs. Wild men of Ceylon
This postcard of the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka [Ceylon] was made from a photograph by Charles Scowen, one of the great photographers of the 19th century, as was likely taken in the 1870s.
A Mohamedan Fakir
John Campbell Oman (1841-1911), author of The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (1903) describes the incident that made him take it upon himself to write this encyclopedic work towards the end of his life.
Madras Seven Pagodas
While we now believe that the temples date to the Pallava King Narasimharavan around 630 CE, much about their origins remains obscure. This is an embossed postcard, with the relief lines meant to simulate an old oil painting.
[Original caption] Seven
General View of Old Fort Mooltan
Compare this hand-colored view to the identical more detailed black-and-white postcard of the old fort and mausoleum of Shah Rukn-e-Alam.
General View of Old Fort, Mooltan
Multan, although a large city and railway junction in southern Punjab, does not appear frequently on postcards.
Bull Temple, Bangalore
This 16th century temple to Nandi, the sacred bull, was built by Kempe Gowda who also founded the city of Bangalore.
Birth of Shakuntala
Vishvamitra was a revered sage in ancient India; this postcard from one of Ravi Varma's most famous paintings shows how he rejects knowledge of his child by turning away and hiding his gaze with a dramatic gesture.
[Original caption] Menaka sent by
Madras Merchant, Colombo
An unusual postcard in the use of so much black, which beautifully brings out the portrait of this man, his beard and clothing (black was expensive for printers due to the amount of ink consumed). Due to better economic prospects in Sri Lanka, during
