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A very early lithographic postcard by Gobindram Oodeyram that seems to have been printed in India. A compelling glimpse of the rural poor in the sprawling state of Rajasthan during what were trying times.
1900-1909
Kashmir. Srinagar
[Original caption] Srinagar (the Venice of the East) in the beautiful and famous vale of Kashmir, is one of the chief cities of that native State.
Group of Waziris
[Original caption] The Waziris are a native race inhabiting the north-west frontier of India - the province immediately next to Afghanistan.
Street Scene, Delhi.
One of the earlier firmly dateable postcards by H.A. Mirza & Sons, the Chandni Chowk photography firm which was to become the dominant Delhi and northern Indian postcard publisher by 1905.
Postmarked Jaipur November 22, 1903 and Chicago Dec.
Hon' ble N.G. Chandravarkar
Sir Narayan Ganesh Chandavarkar, an early Hindu reformer and political leader, was born in Karnataka in 1855. He later became vice-chancellor of the University of Bombay where he spent most of his life working as a Justice, activist and reformer.
Greetings from Darjeeling Himalaya
An early "Greetings from" postcard of Darjeeling by its premiere early photographer Thomas Paar. Clare Harris in her excellent book Photography and Tibet (Reaktion, 2016) "deconstructs" the figure on the left, whom she correctly calls a 'poster boy'
A Brahmin Astrologer
Taraporevala & Sons was the premiere Bombay bookstore and publisher, stock full of 19th century illustrated magazines and images eagerly bought and saved in trunks by artists like Ravi Varma as inspiration.
Wellawatta Canal
[Original caption] Wellawatta Canal. The length of the island of Colombo is 270 miles, its width 140 miles, an area about four-fifths the size of Ireland.
A Bhil Couple
Bhils are a name for ancient tribes across a wide swathe of India, including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan as well as in parts of far-eastern India. Although Hobson-Jobson claimed that "no distinct Bhil language survives" (p.
Buddha's Image
A superbly coloured postcard by D.A. Ahuja. It has probably been coloured with stencils given the inaccuracy around some of the edges, but the colours also seem well woven into the card so could have been part of the German printer's process.
