An Indian Bungalow
Postmarked Seapost Office [Bombay] April 1906, received in Manchester April 28, and addressed to Miss. L. Swill [sp?] in Manchester, England with this note on the front: "What price this for a couple."
1900-1909
The Bund, Poona
An almost technicolor-blue tinted collotype. The bund or dam at Pune was one of the most postcarded views from the city. Built by Sir Jamsetjee Jeetbhoy, a Bombay philanthropist, cotton and opium merchant, it was completed in 1869.
Greetings from Calcutta
An early composite postcard, made up of 27 separate images stuffed into the outline of the letters.
A Benares Dancing Girl
Note how nicely the stamp is positioned in line with the woman's arms; according to the so-called "language of stamps" current at the turn of the century, this stamp position might mean the sender is asking "Do you love me?" or even "Your love
A Benares Dancing Girl
When this card was first published from London, The Picture Postcard and Collector's Chronicle, a magazine that catered to collectors, businessmen and and aficionados of the new medium, hailed it as a “a fascinating dancing girl from Benares” (Jan.
A Baluchi Ploughman
A postcard evocative of the hard toil required to plow fields given the upturned rocky soil. Note the large dog crouching on the right behind the farmer.
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.
Calcutta Museum
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.
Taj Mahal Hotel. Bombay.
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
Galta Tank Jaipur
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.
