People

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.

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.

Hobson Jobson (1903) the great dictionary of Indian words in English, defines "Dhoby, Dobie s. A washerman; H. dhobi [from dhona, Skt. [Sanskrit] dhav, 'to wash.'] In colloquial Anglo-Indian use all over India. A common H. [Hindustani] proverb runs:

An extremely rare early postcard by an little-known lithographer, W. Cooper, in Bombay. It looks to crude to have been made at The Ravi Varma Press. Cooper seemed to prefer risque images.