Mullahs (Native Priests)

Titre

En Mullahs (Native Priests)

Fr Mollahs (prêtres indigènes)

Type

Photograph / Albumen print

Créateur/ Créatrice

Antoin Sevruguin (photographer, c. 1830–1933)

Identifiant

E.339:57-2010

Format

Albumen print, mounted in leather-bound album

Dimension

13.5 × 20.7cm

Lieu de découverte

Iran (Sultanabad / modern Arak)

Résumé

En This group portrait, taken in Iran, of 21 Muslim clerics and dervishes holding rosaries, kashkuls (begging bowls), crooks and ceremonial axes is part of the C.R. Smith archive. This small archive consists of an album of 60 mounted albumen prints (predominantly portraits and topographical views, taken in Iran and Iraq), a further 24 loose photographs, and a series of letters and memos.

These document a correspondence between Charles R. Smith (born 1866) and various colleagues made throughout 1901, when he was approached to join a new carpet enterprise in Tabriz. He duly left Sultanabad where he had been working for the Persian Carpet Manufacturing Company, but by July of the same year he had returned to his native Kidderminster in England. It is not known if the Tabriz business plan was ever realised.

Most of the photographs in this album are marked with a small order number, written onto the original negative. This numbering system was the working practice of Antoin Sevruguin (c. 1830-1933), also known as Antoin Khan, one of the most successful commercial photographers in Iran at the turn of the century. Based in Tehran, Sevruguin photographed people, landscapes and architecture throughout the country. It is therefore clear that most of Smith's album photographs were stock images bought from Sevruguin's studio, and not taken by Smith himself. This contrasts with the Ronald Graham album (now in Harvard University Art Museum), which contains photos taken by Graham with a Kodak camera, when he visited Iran in 1897-1899.

Fr Ce portrait de groupe, pris en Iran, représente 21 religieux musulmans et derviches tenant des chapelets, des kashkuls (bols de mendicité), des crosses et des haches cérémonielles. Il fait partie de l'archive C.R. Smith, un petit fonds composé d'un album de 60 épreuves à l'albumine (principalement des portraits et des vues topographiques prises en Iran et en Irak), de 24 photographies isolées et d'une série de lettres et de mémorandums. La plupart des photographies sont marquées d'un numéro de commande inscrit sur le négatif original, pratique professionnelle d'Antoin Sevruguin (v. 1830–1933), l'un des photographes commerciaux les plus importants de l'Iran à la fin du XIXe siècle.

Date

1895 - 1900

Source

C.R. Smith Archive; Prints & Drawings Study Room, V&A South Kensington (Room 512M)

Edition

Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Photographs Collection)

Référence

V&A Collections

Droits

Licence

Non-commercial online use permitted up to 768 pixels for up to 5 years