Indian Man With Monkeys RPPC

Divided Back, Real Photo Postcard, unused. Circa 1918 – 1936. Stamp Box:  K Ltd. 

Price:  $12.00

Jumping from Bali over to India, (at least, we presume this to be India), here’s a lovely, Real Photo Postcard of a man in a traditional style dress (the patterned portion is a lungi, I think) and cloth head covering. He likely has some fruit in his hand that the monkey is trying to get. You’ll see four monkeys in this image, probably all some type of macaque. The card is dated by virtue of the K Ltd type of stamp box.

Sources:  “What are the differences between Lungi and Dhoti?” February 23, 2021. mrlungi.com. (accessed July 26, 2022).

Joherey, Janhvi. “10 Native Monkeys of India – With Photos.” animalwised.com. January 30, 2017. (accessed July 26, 2022).

“Real Photo Postcard Stamp Boxes, K – L.” Playle.com. (accessed July 26, 2022).

 

Temple Guardians, Bali, Indonesia

Divided back, Real Photo Postcard, unused. Circa 1910s – 1930s. Publisher:  Gevaert.

Price:  $75.00

This seems to be a rare card – we’re not finding any duplicates online – and the subject matter is great!

It was after a couple of days of research, and at the point of giving up (much online scrutiny of gods, deities, masks, carved repeating patterns, etc. in a surprising number of potential countries) that the location in question was happily revealed. Not surprisingly, it was the larger figures in the postcard photo, with their protruding top teeth, tongues hanging out, curving tusks, bulging eyes and bull-like nose, that took us (in that moment of certainty – like space-warp instant travel) – to the island of Bali, Indonesia. (It would be nice to be able to identify each carved figure but that turns out to be more challenging:  There can be multiple manifestations, including both female and male representations of the same god.)

Below, our Google search result, and see the link in “Sources” for more information from the Bali Culture Tours website:

Sources:  “Balinese Gods With Their Manifestations And Their Meanings.” Bali Culture Tours. (accessed July 26, 2022).

“Images of Indonesia Deities.” Google.com search. (accessed July 26, 2022).

Sphinx And Pyramids, Gevaert RPPC

Divided back, Real Photo Postcard, unused. Publisher:  Grevaert. Circa late 1930s – early 1940s.

Price:  $8.00

This one is in okay shape, good except that the card is curling, rather than laying flat. And it’s not necessarily rare; there seem to be plenty of surviving similar-view vintage cards, since the subject matter is so…..we normally take it for granted – incredible). I bought this postcard thinking about my great-great-grandfather, Giovanni Oliva, who, I had been recently surprised to learn (from a reputable family source,) traveled from his home in England, to work on the Suez Canal, stopping on the way to or from the work site to see the Sphinx and the Pyramids at Giza. (A Genovese Italian living in or near Liverpool who had traveled to Egypt – the stories he must have brought home!) Did he know of that other Giovanni from Genoa? explorer and Egyptologist, Giovanni Battista Caviglia (1770 – 1845). (I picture my great-great-grand sending a salute and a grin across the years.)

To try to pin down a date for the card, we turned to an old newspaper article, from November 24, 1936:  This was the first, in modern times, that the complete structure had been uncovered.

Sources:  Great Sphinx of Giza. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza (accessed July 9, 2022).

Giovanni Battista Caviglia. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Caviglia (accessed July 9, 2022).

“Ancient Grandeur of Sphinx Revealed.” The Ithaca Journal. (Ithaca, NY). November 24, 1936. Tuesday, p. 1. (Newspapers.com).