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.
Bombay Mumbai
Byculla Club, Bombay
A postcard where the angle and architecture combine effectively to represent the role an institution once played in India's political and social life.
An Arab Ship, Bombay Harbour
An atypical postcard that shows a ship in dry dock.
First Glimpse of Bombay Harbour
A rare landscape postcard by M.V. Dhurandhar; the vast majority of the seventy or so postcards he painted during this period were of people. Rajabai Clock Tower is visible on the right.
Hornby Road & The Floral Fountain, Bombay.
[Original caption] Bombay, unlike most of the other shipping towns of importance, is not situated upon a river.
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.
Bear-Leader (Darweshi)
A very early lithographed card by Paul Gerhardt, who ran the lithographic printers at the Ravi Varma Press.
Sent to Miss Ettoi Virmillion, 52 West & South, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, via San Francisco: [Recto] "Bombay 22 March 1905. Very bare. Will"
Bombay. General Post Office.
[Original caption] General Post Office - Here is to be found a very fine building and an immense amount of business is transacted here. [end]
Opened in 1913, with a central dome modelled after the Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur, this remains one of the iconic
India, Bombay-Calcutta
An early "Greetings from" concept card, printed in Italy, possibly to market train service between Mumbai and Kolkata, rife with tropes that Europeans would have associated with India: a tiger (stalking the train?
Bombay. Back Bay from Malabar Hill
[Original caption] Back Bay, from Malabar Hill. A delightful spot where all classes, European and native, congregate to enjoy the fresh and breezy air in the cool of the evening. [end]
[Verso, handwritten] "This is a scene from Malabar Hill on which
