Rare Raja Ravi Varma Vishwamitra & Menaka 1910 Postcard Bombay
A rare 1910 postcard featuring Raja Ravi Varma’s celebrated Vishwamitra and Menaka composition. Reproduced from one of the artist’s earliest and most iconic artworks. Printed by Joshi Bros. of Bombay (Mumbai), the postcard is based on Ravi Varma’s famous 1894 oleograph. This was among the very first oleograph or chromolithographs issued by the renowned Raja Ravi Varma Press.
Although often titled Vishwamitra and Menaka, the artwork became more widely recognised as The Birth of Shakuntala, illustrating the dramatic moment from Indian mythology when the celestial nymph Menaka presents her newborn daughter Shakuntala to Sage Vishwamitra, who turns away from the child.
The postcard also reflects the important role played by Joshi Bros. This prominent Bombay picture dealer served as a distribution agent for the Ravi Varma Press in the early twentieth century. Historical records mention A. K. Joshi as one of the distributors appointed when demand for Ravi Varma’s prints expanded rapidly across India. By this period, the press itself had already entered a new chapter under the ownership of Fritz Schleicher, the German technician who acquired the financially struggling enterprise from Ravi Varma and his brother Raja Varma in 1903. The reverse of this postcard contains a handwritten Gujarati New Year’s greeting, adding both cultural and historical significance to this remarkable survivor from the colonial era.
Did you know – in 1903, German technician Fritz Schleicher purchased the loss-making Ravi Varma Press. Through better management and an expanded distribution network, he transformed it into one of India’s most successful and influential art publishing houses, helping Ravi Varma’s oleographs reach homes across the subcontinent.
