Cocoa Palmleaf Plaiters, Malabar
Early postcards from the Malabar coast seem to be relatively rare. In the message below, "Dusk" seems to be a dog.
[Verso] "6-5-20. Aren't they smartly pretty? I expect Dusk would like to bite this calf don't you?
Women
Kandyan Lady, Ceylon
A lavishly illustrated studio postcard; note how the presumably dancer is displaying her ghungroos on her ankles.
Compare to the black and white collotype of the same photograph.
Kandyan lady
Compare to the halftone color version of the same photograph.
Long Live the Revolution! Shrimati Sarojini Naidu
An advertising postcard celebrating the Independence struggle and the poet Sarojini Naidu, who the Turkish poet Halide Edib, then on a visit to India, described in her book Inside India (1938, p. 44):
"Sarojini is a poet.
Nautch Girl Lying, Jaipur
The great Hindi/Urdu writer Munshi Premchand describes, from the point-of-view of Suman, the heroine of his first novel Sevasadan, the complex view she has of Bholi, a courtesan living across the street from her:
"Suman had never met any courtesans,
Sreemati Kamaladevi Chattopadhaya
Kamaladevi Chattopadhaya was born into an intellectual family in Mangalore on the west coast of India.
Woman On Chair
A melange of green, ink, red and yellow masterfully applied to a real photograph.
Woman In Studio
A skillfully done studio shot with real depth of field provided by the seating arrangement and sparse use of green, pink and white with a dash of glitter.
A Kashmiri Nautch Girl
[Verso] Postmarked Mount Road, Madras, 17 Sep. 1903 at 11:30 a.m. and addressed to Miss Olive McMillan, St. Augustine's, Cliftonville, Margate, England.
[Recto] "16/9/03 With Many Salaams from Mother."
Woman In Studio
A unusual real photo postcard that is both hand colored and has glitter finely applied to the hems of the woman's dress. She is resting her arm on a magnificent pedestal that suggests a north Indian studio, possibly in Lucknow.
