Wrestlers in India

A cabinet card portrait of two sportsmen, presumably wrestlers, photographed in India circa 1895-1905, possibly while serving in the British Army.

Photographed by Paul Metzker of Secunderabad in the state of Telangana in southern India.

Metzker's name appears several times in the records of the Freemasons in India around the end of the century. His full name was Albert Adolf Paul Metzker (or Paul Albert Adolf Metzker). He was recorded in 1898 as a 26-year-old photographer in Secunderabad, so he was born in or about 1872. In 1904 and 1907 he was at Poona [Pune] and in 1908 he was at Kirkee [Khadki]. In 1908 his photographs of the recent floods in Hyderabad were published in The Graphic. On 4 July 1913 he arrived at Plymouth aboard the Omrah, a passenger ship operated by the Orient Steam Navigation Company Ltd, having joined the voyage from Brisbane at Colombo. According to the ship's incoming passenger list, he was a German citizen.