A Morning Obligato
A very early postcard printed in India (postmarked Dec. 1902 in one instance) by the lithographer W. Cooper. The chance discovery of another photographic postcard shows how a scene like this was composed.
People
The Kulri, Mussoorie
Clifton's later postcards, especially his candid photographs in the bazaars of Mussoorie, are among his most interesting. There is a blur to man on the right, suggesting this came from a longer-exposure albumen photograph.
An Indian Fakir
Although it is a single fakir at the doorway who is the subject of the postcard's title, it is the colors of the entrance to the Golden Temple in Amritsar that catch our eye.
The Narghileh Smoker
[Original caption] The Kaid sits at his ease smoking his narghileh whose gilded bow his slave adroitly feds with tiny lumps of tobacco, keef or opium.
Washing Day Dhobi Washer Woman
A humorous colonial postcard comparing clothes washing in England and India, part of a larger artist-signed series by the large Kolkata retailer.
Shipping Tea, Colombo
"People like me who came to England in the 1950s have been there for centuries," writes the Jamaican cultural theorist Stuart Hall, "symbolically we have been there for centuries. I was coming home.
Hornby Road & The Floral Fountain, Bombay.
[Original caption] Bombay, unlike most of the other shipping towns of importance, is not situated upon a river.
Bunder Wallah or Monkey Man
Sent to R.S. Gibbons, c/o Mrs. N.L. Larler, J.G. Northhampton Road, Addiscombe, Croydon, Surrey, England: "Feb 4th [1919?]. Granny sent you 10/- [shillings] for Xmas. Ask R.M. to give it to you out of the Bank.
A Potter, Northern India
[Original caption] A Potter, Northern India. Fostered by "caste," the native craftsman remains, contentedly, throughout his life in that sphere of industry into which he was born.
Brahman
The Brahmin, as the art scholar Allan Life has noted, is reluctantly shuffling from tradition to modernity, from the temple behind him to the new city in front of him.
