India Through Picture Postcards

Sangeeta and Ratnesh Mathur have been collecting postcards – dating from the late 19th century - featuring the Indian subcontinent for over 15 years, a large selection of which they have compiled into a delightful book. In this extract from Picturesque India: A Journey in Early Picture Postcards (1896-1947), they explain how they built their collection, and what inspired them to begin the collection. The postcards reproduced are selections from each chapter in the book, which are based on popular travel routes of those times, covering the entire subcontinent.

IN 2003, we relocated to Central Europe for a few years on a work assignment. This opened new windows for us in our print collecting hobbies. We, of course, started seeing India in a different light—as nonresidents—and as we searched for old Indian prints in Central Europe’s antiquarian bookshops and weekend hobby club gatherings, we came across a treasure trove of early photographs of India, printed as “Picture Postcards” and posted by Europeans back home from their travels to India.Austria, The Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Germany were all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when in 1869, in the Empire’s capital, Vienna, Dr Emanuel Hermann conceptualised the “postcard”. The “Golden Era” of the picture postcard (1890–1918) marks the beginning of their usage, leading uptoto an explosion in the usage of the medium lasting until the end of World War I in 1918.

During this phase, a cheaper form without pictures, known as the “Correspondence Card” or just “Postcard”, had been introduced in British India and in many Indian princely states. While this became the popular product within India, Europeans themselves largely switched to the more expensive “Picture Postcard”, sending these pictures in large numbers to family and friends, sharing the visuals captured by the early photographers in India. Within Europe, the hobby of collecting postcards, which began in the Golden Era, came to be known as Deltiology. The practice has somehow continued into these internet boom years.