A Village Belle, Kashmir
A remarkable portrait, probably taken by the photographer Fred Bremner many of whose images of Kashmir were published by Clifton and Co., one of the earliest all-India postcard publishers.
Women
Rice Grinding [handwritten]
![Rice Grinding [handwritten]](https://www.paperjewels.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/slides/rice-grinding_0.jpg?itok=R7-LwAWK "Rice Grinding [handwritten]")
A rare individually hand-painted postcard of a woman with a traditional stone rice grinder, often used to grind rice batter to make South Indian idlis or dosas.
A Water Carrier, Central Provinces India.
[Original caption] Woman Water Carrier. It is no unusual sight in India to see women performing manual labour, and in some cases they perform harder tasks than the men.
Punjab Rose
An impressive studio shot that lays bare the artifice used to make these images work: the painted backdrop with visible border, the matching design shoes and carpet, the desk or piano the woman's arm is resting on, surrounded by an oval frame common
Singhalese ayah (Nurse Maid)
Plate & Co. in Colombo dominated the postcard trade on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and sold half a million postcards in 1907 alone, an enormous sum for a single publisher.
Expecting
A rare image of a pregnant woman (or is she just waiting?), posing in a studio, with an abundance of real vegetation surrounding her.
Music
[Verso, handwritten] "Oct. 24, 1915. My dear Annie, Do you think you could play this instrument? The music is very weird but I suppose they think it is nice. I don't!
Indian Dancing Girl
One of the more elaborately framed and coloured portraits of a nautch girl.
Miss Chabukswari of Delhi
Usually, dancing women were unnamed, even when they become famous (for example, Gohar Jan became a "Bombay beauty"). In this case however perhaps her name or fame justified a different approach, and it was better marketing by the unknown publisher to
Parsee Ladies at Seaside
Dhurandhar and other J.J. School students spent so much time sketching at the beach on Marine Drive, they could hardly have failed to pick-up a sight like this. The daughter in Parsee Ladies at Seaside is even more Westernized than her mother.
