Plague Patients.
Illustrated postcards actually came to Mumbai at an inauspicious moment.
Clifton & Co.
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.
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.
Golden Temple, Umritsar
This postcard is probably among the earliest of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, given the undivided back, and Clifton's role as one of the earliest all-India postcard publishers. It is probably from a 19th century albumen print.
This card was sent
A Parsee Lady
Parsis in India originally came from Iran (Persia), and Parsi ladies were among the first Indian women to have had an active public life, no doubt helped by a high literacy rate in the community (there is a postcard or letter in the woman's hand).
Water Carrier
The bhistee or water carrier was a critical support to urban life before running water became widespread and reliable, and is one of the most frequent postcard subjects.
Mayo College
Mayo College in Ajmer, Rajasthan, which bills itself as the best boys boarding school in India, was founded in 1875 by the the 6th Earl of Mayo who was also the Viceroy of India from 1869 until 1872, when he was assassinated by a convict on the
Parsee Tower of Silence, Bombay
Who knows what motivated the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig to send this postcard to Miss Hirschfeld in Vienna from Bombay on December 30, 1908? The 27-year old Zweig, a budding novelist whose popularity after World War I was unparalleled among German
A Fakir
Hobson-Jobson defines fakir as "s. Hind. from Arab. faḳīr ('poor'). Properly an indigent person, but specially 'one poor in the sight of God,' applied to a Mahommedan religious mendicant, and then, loosely and inaccurately, to Hindu devotees and
