Spectacular color pictures for the first time of Qajar women by Antoine Sorogin

In 1908, the world was denied the rich collection of Sevruguin’s images when the Cossacks of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar (reigned from 1907–1909) inadvertently bombed his store in suppression of Zahiru’d-Dawla, the constitutionalist Governor of Rasht. His house, along with the whole street, was burned. Up to that point, Antoin had taken more than seven thousand photographs. Only two thousand were salvaged. As the photographs depicted numerous figures associated with the former Qajar regime and showed “conditions far removed from his own notions of a modern westernized nation”, Reza Shah Pahlavi (reigned from 1925–1941) confiscated the remaining images.

May 6, 2023 | 11:13 pm