These are Victorian hand painted pictures from the Indian subcontinent. Often referd to as company pictures. If you were a person of means and doing the tour of Empire on your visit to India, this is what you would have bought as reminders. Purchased from the street venders at the train station. As mentioned they are hand painted in the reverse on thin sheets of mica. They were called company pictures because they were painted by underpaid sweatshop artisans working for the British East India Company. They are really fragile and not many of them survive.
And the story of the shady fellow in the door way, well it's almost true. I was minding my own business, but for some reason walk into a pawn shop. I think I'll need to make more visits to pawn shops.
Any how I will frame them up properly in an antique eastlake frame I bought and proudly tell stories of my visit to the Indian subcontinent. More Victorian clutter to add to the old girl.
