The Guardians of The Gate
Part of an eight card set depicting the same roles but different types who fill them in India and Britain, durwan being defined as "a live-in doorkeeper, especially in an apartment building."
Part of an eight card set depicting the same roles but different types who fill them in India and Britain, durwan being defined as "a live-in doorkeeper, especially in an apartment building."
Of the nine Josef Hoffman artist-signed postcards of India published by a Viennese firm in 1898 (here in an English version for Thacker & Co.), this one is the hardest to find, why is unclear.
Jute was one of the major agricultural products during the Raj and for some period afterwards, with most of the crop grown in East Bengal, and the fiber processed in mills in and around Kolkata.
Another colorful artist-signed postcard of one of Kolkata's most prominent landmarks and postcarded spaces.
Another painted postcard by the Anglo-Indian artist Frank Clinger Scallan (1870-1950) whose Kolkata series of nearly a dozen postcards reflects the pleasures of life in what was British India's largest metropolis.
A vibrant painted postcard by the Anglo-Indian artist Frank Clinger Scallan (1870-1950), part of a series he made illustrating the city he spent much of his life in.
An atypical postcard that shows a ship in dry dock.
A humorous colonial postcard comparing clothes washing in England and India, part of a larger artist-signed series by the large Kolkata retailer.
Almost invisible in this painted scene are the two men near the center, half-hidden markers of scale, secret rewards for the perceptive postcard viewer.
A painted postcard of Simla, published by the local branch of one of the Raj's major retailers based in Kolkata.