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.
Color
Four Kandyan Girls, Ceylon
This image published by The Colombo Apothecaries is apparently based on an original albumen photograph taken in the 1870s or 1880s by the British photographer Charles Scowen who sold his negatives to the firm when he tried to become a planter in
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.
A Rajput
A very early lithographic card, published by Gobindram Oodeyram, likely printed in India.
Bombay
An early Italian or French postcard celebrating or advertising the city of Bombay. It also features a bicycle, then becoming popular in the city.
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.
Fruit Seller
Note the rich character on this man's face in an image by M.V. Dhurandhar, one of India's most exceptional and prolific early 20th century painters and postcard artists.
Sent to Master E.
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
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.
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.
