Near and Far Eastern History and Archaeology
Photographs of Antoin Sevruguin
Antoin Sevruguin (late 1830s-1933), a celebrated photographer of late nineteenth century Iran, was born in Tehran at the Russian embassy. He spent his childhood in Iran, then moved with his family to Tbilisi, the capital of modern-day Georgia. Around 1870 he revisited Iran, subsequently marrying and settling down there. He went on to establish himself as one of the first professional photographers in Iran, operating a commercial studio from the 1870s to the 1930s, producing formal studio portraits, travel snapshots, renditions of objects and architectural monuments, and posed genre scenes. He produced more than seven thousand glass plates and recorded nearly all of the important sites in Iran. His images are important historical documents and primary resources on Iran during an era of transformation. Later he became one of the official court photographers to Nasir al-din Shah and all the subsequent shahs, through to Riza Shah. He died in Tehran.
The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives contain over eight hundred images of Sevruguin’s photographs, constituting the largest single collection of his work in the world. Between 1973 and 1985 over 650 of Sevruguin’s glass plate negatives, and 140 original silver prints, were donated by the widow of Myron Bement Smith (1897-1970), a scholar of Persian art and architecture. Beginning in 1934, Smith assembled these photographs for his Islamic Archive, which included 66 Sevruguin prints donated in 1953 by Joseph Upton (1901-1981). The collection was originally given to the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian in 1973; it was transferred four years later to the Freer Gallery of Art Archives. In 1985, Jay Bisno (b.1939), an archaeologist at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, further enriched the collection with his donation of 18 albumen prints of Sevruguin’s photographs of shahs, sultans, dervishes, groups of people and events such as official ceremonies and executions.
The microfiche production of Photographs of Antoin Sevruguin is accompanied by a finding aid entitled Register to Photographs of Antoin Sevruguin in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. It consists of two parts, with Series 1: Myron Bement Smith Collection; and Series 2: Albumen prints of Antoin Sevruguin photographs.
This collection is also included in the Near and Far Eastern History and Archaeology collection.
Photographs of Antoin Sevruguin
Antoin Sevruguin (late 1830s-1933), a celebrated photographer of late nineteenth century Iran, was born in Tehran at the Russian embassy. He spent his childhood in Iran, then moved with his family to Tbilisi, the capital of modern-day Georgia. Around 1870 he revisited Iran, subsequently marrying and settling down there. He went on to establish himself as one of the first professional photographers in Iran, operating a commercial studio from the 1870s to the 1930s, producing formal studio portraits, travel snapshots, renditions of objects and architectural monuments, and posed genre scenes. He produced more than seven thousand glass plates and recorded nearly all of the important sites in Iran. His images are important historical documents and primary resources on Iran during an era of transformation. Later he became one of the official court photographers to Nasir al-din Shah and all the subsequent shahs, through to Riza Shah. He died in Tehran.
The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives contain over eight hundred images of Sevruguin’s photographs, constituting the largest single collection of his work in the world. Between 1973 and 1985 over 650 of Sevruguin’s glass plate negatives, and 140 original silver prints, were donated by the widow of Myron Bement Smith (1897-1970), a scholar of Persian art and architecture. Beginning in 1934, Smith assembled these photographs for his Islamic Archive, which included 66 Sevruguin prints donated in 1953 by Joseph Upton (1901-1981). The collection was originally given to the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian in 1973; it was transferred four years later to the Freer Gallery of Art Archives. In 1985, Jay Bisno (b.1939), an archaeologist at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, further enriched the collection with his donation of 18 albumen prints of Sevruguin’s photographs of shahs, sultans, dervishes, groups of people and events such as official ceremonies and executions.
The microfiche production of Photographs of Antoin Sevruguin is accompanied by a finding aid entitled Register to Photographs of Antoin Sevruguin in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. It consists of two parts, with Series 1: Myron Bement Smith Collection; and Series 2: Albumen prints of Antoin Sevruguin photographs.
This collection is also included in the Near and Far Eastern History and Archaeology collection.
