The Urdu text and number suggests that this postcard was made from what was originally a carte-des-visite. Joachim Bautze in his essay Umrao Jan Ada: Her carte-de-visite describes how this form of identification on images was a common practice among
A dance hall in an important railway junction and cantonment made famous in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. This hall, from the title, possibly featured dancing or "nautch" girls, or it might have been a dance hall where British soldiers held dances
Among the first series of postcards printed in India by The Ravi Varma Press, this lithograph by the German artist at the Press, Paul Gerhardt, shows how in these very early days, placing the title was not quite fixed by convention, It could easily
Most likely a dancer given her anklets, Goa, as a Portuguese Colony, was not well-represented in British Indian postcards.
This card, sent by a Mr. Seamus on Dec. 1, 1905 from Kolkata, has a stamp positioned in the top that extends the tilt of the woman's head.
To be a named "beauty" on a postcard was quite an honor at the turn of the century. Rukmoni is shown here in a studio with colorized backdrop.
An unusual coloured collotype by Kashmir's premiere postcard publisher. The pink seems to billow both outward from the frame and upward to the woman's face.
Kalighat - Burning Ghat - Nautch Girl - Kali
One of the earliest "Greetings from Calcutta" postcards, by the German or Austrian photographer Werner Roessler who was based in the city and had the lithographic card printed in Austria from his
One of the more beautiful hand-tinted real photographic postcards. Identified only as a South Indian woman, it seems to have been printed in a French colony (Vietnam?) by a Chinese photographer.
This postcard actually shows Gohar Jan, India's first gramophone recorded artist (1902) and the most famous singer of her time.
