Many of the earliest postcards were actually advertising cards, given the expense of producing lithographic cards like this French view of a 17th century Nawab and son. The woman in the back holds a nautch girl's pose.
Elephants Bathing. Queen's Hotel. Temple of the Sacred Tooth.
A multi-image card popular around the turn of the century, where one type of postcard sought to compress as many views of a place into a small space. Murray's Handbook for India, Burma and
An example of how writing could create something aesthetically appealing and seemingly become one with an image.
The back of this advertising card for "Price's 'Lighting Tapers,' for lighting candles, gas, &c, White or coloured, in various thicknesses, and 12 or 22 inches long," provides this caption about what is also known as the First War of Independence or
An early Lipton's advertising postcard; the firm used postcards very effectively to spread the new habit of tea drinking and associate it with its brand of Ceylon-grown teas.
[Original German] Maedchen Schule in Jeypore [end]
This image was made by the Austrian landscape painter Josef Hoffman who toured India and Persia in the 1890s.
A postcard like this was the result of a careful and perhaps exhausting pose by the dancers. Note the man holding up the backdrop, which probably covered a studio wall or other scene.
[Original caption] Shankar receives the river Ganga on his head in compliance with the prayers of Bhageeratha. [end]
This image is from a famous painting by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), one of India's most important painters.
Lynne Withey writes in Grand Tours and Cooks Tours (London, 1998), about the growth of the Western tourist trade in the 1890s, that "apart from a few first-class establishments in major cities, most hotels were barely acceptable by Western standards.
"Darjeeling is a hillstation and Sanatorium, situated on the lower slopes of the Himalayas.
