Welcome to Cosmographia — a newsletter exploring the world and our place in it. For the full map of posts, see here. This post is part of our weekly celebration of beauty — Friday Aesthetica.
Born in the Russian embassy in Tehran, where his father worked as a diplomat, Antoin Sevruguin (1840s-1933) initially hoped to become a painter. After his father died in a tragic horse-riding accident, his mother moved her children back to her home city of Tbilisi, Georgia. Unable to claim their father’s rightful pension, Antoin gave up the brush and picked up the camera in a bid to support his family. He would return to Iran in the 1870s, setting up a photography studio in Tabriz, before eventually relocating to Tehran.
By the late nineteenth century, Sevruguin was perhaps the most accomplished photographer in all Qajar Iran, even producing work for the Shah himself. Over the course of fifty years, he documented the many faces of the country of his birth, from its architecture to its archaeological sites, from its royalty to its humblest shepherd.
The geopolitical situation of the last five decades has meant that Iran has now become a byword for radical Islamism and state-sponsored terror, but it was not always so. For four thousand years, Iran — or as the Greeks used to call it, Persia — remained one of the world’s greatest centres of civilisation, producing art, philosophy, and literature to rival anything produced in China, India, or Europe. Indeed, it was the fusion of Persian culture and an emergent Islam that gave birth to some of the greatest poetry and architecture that the world has ever seen.
I look forward to the day the current regime falls, and the world can become reunited with Iranian culture once again. Until then, we have the photography of Antoin Sevruguin.
Tehran City Rooftops against Snowcapped Alborz Mountain
Tehran, Entrance to Kakh-i Gulistan (Gulistan Palace Complex) from Maydan-i Arg (Arg square or the old Canons' square): Zurkhana Wrestlers' Performance, possibly Part of Nowruz Festivities
Studio Portrait: Seated Persian Girl in Ballet Costume
Riverside Landscape
Shepherds and Sheep
Tehran, Darvaza Dawlat (Dawlat City gate), Viewed from Outside the City
Province of Fars, Yazd-i Khast or Izad-Khast Complex: Side View of the Eastern Part of the Complex
Possibly the Dasht-i Lar Region, Mount Damavand in Background: Woman in European Attire with Caravan Escort
Tehran, Darvaza Dawlat (Dawlat City Gate): Soldiers Standing in Front of the Closed Gates
Qulha, Camp Set in Front of Hills
Group Portrait: Women and Children
Seascape with Men in Boats
Tehran, Masjid-I Sipahsalar (Sipahsalar Mosque): Large Gathering in Front of the Main Entrance Portal
Studio Portrait: Seated Dervish Holding Engraved Axe
Tehran, Maydan-i Tupkhana (also known as Maydan-i Sipah or Square of Canons)
Tehran, Kakh-i Sahibqaraniyya (Sahibqaraniyya Palace), Talar-i Ayena (Hall of Mirrors): Nasir Al-Din Shah at his Desk
View of Shushtar, including a Bridge
Ashura Reenactment Procession
Tehran, Saltanat-Abad Palace Complex: Side View of Abdar-Khana (Kitchen) and Pool
Studio Portrait: Nomad Women
Tehran, Darvaza Dawlat (Dawlat City Gate)
Nasir Al-Din Shah's Group of Hunters along with the Head of the Royal Stable, Mohammad Hussayn Mirza, Mir Akhur
Shahristanak, Imarat-i Shahristanak, Nasir Al-Din Shah's Royal Summer Compound
Province of Gilan, Port of Bandar Anzali
Portrait of Reza Shah Pahlavi with Boris Shumyatsky, the Soviet Ambassador (1923-25)
Tehran, Nasseriya Street
Safid Rud Valley
Tehran, Dawlat Gate, Northeast City Gate, with Alborz Mountain Range in Background
Shahr-i Ray, North side of Naqar Khana, Tomb Tower
Residence of a Diplomat
Portrait of Veiled Persian Woman Standing in a Courtyard
Qum, Hazrat-i Ma'suma Shrine Complex and Islamic Cemetery in the Foreground
Rayy, Zoroastrian Tower of Silence (Khamushan Tower)
These wonderful photos bring my memories of Iran in the 1970s. The archeological sites were largely restored, but the bazaars looked the same, and women were not veiled. They wore lovely diaphanous scarves that covered their hair, not their faces. Tragic what has befallen them.
These wonderful photos bring my memories of Iran in the 1970s. The archeological sites were largely restored, but the bazaars looked the same, and women were not veiled. They wore lovely diaphanous scarves that covered their hair, not their faces. Tragic what has befallen them.
Fabulous photos