Bombay Beauty
Around the turn of the century, women of Bombay were on the cutting-edge of popular fashion, photographed in studio settings like this one and extensively postcarded.
Around the turn of the century, women of Bombay were on the cutting-edge of popular fashion, photographed in studio settings like this one and extensively postcarded.
The Calcutta Museum was founded by a Danish botanist, Nathaniel Wallich, in 1814. It shifted to the present site in the 1870s. The architect of Calcutta Museum was W. L.
The Mexican Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz has a nice description of coming upon the Taj Mohal Hotel by ship for the first time in the early 1950s: "Behind the monument [India Gate], floating in the warm air, was a silhouette of the Taj Mahal
Galtaji is an ancient set of Hindu temples built into rocky hills near Jaipur, nicely captured in this rich early collotype by one of the first all-India postcard publishers.
A lovely postcard were the energy flows outwards towards the viewer from the Char Minar, the city's landmark mosque built in 1591.
An early postcard of Gulmarg, a favorite holiday resort during the Raj and now a ski resort.
For a beautiful postcard like this, we might reach for an excerpt by Nirad Chaudhri (1897-1999). Even if written about a different railway station, in East Bengal, it shows how impactful trains were to those in India at the turn of the century.
A candid Delhi shot by a little-known photographer.
A postcard which represents something of the uneasy relationships during the colonial period. The ancient banyan tree is hemmed in by fencing and benches. Two bearded British men are enjoying a drink under its shade.
A carefully staged scene in which the cloth backdrop helps focus us on the individuality of the men.