English: Haji Yusuf [?]

c. 1905 Lithograph Divided back 13.75x8.75cm

An unusual lithographic postcard, blind stamped across the entire back "Haji Yusuf Haji Mohammed Pictures, Post-cards and Cutlery Merchant. Grant Road Cross-Lane. Bombay, 7" that suggests this firm may have been the publisher. The exceptional series of type postcards by the publisher strongly support it having been a Bombay publisher, but until more evidence surfaces, one cannot be sure. Clearly the artists were Indian, and the local types chosen like were not those typically favoured by foreign publishers, although they were printed in England at a time that lithographs were largely replaced by less expensive collotypes and halftone postcards.