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Antione Sevruguin
Tehran (Iran): Kakh-i Sahibqaraniyya (Sahibqaraniyya Palace), Talar-i Ayena (Hall of Mirrors): Nasir Al-Din Shah at his Desk
n.d.
Photograph
17.7 x 13 cm
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs
LL/104177
Searching for Authenticity: Qajar Iran Photography
(Accessed: 5 September 2020)
Sevruguin’s photos can serve as a way to invert views of Orientalism and the strict East vs. West binary associated with Qajar Iran’s photographic practices.1 However, it is also important to remember that although many of Sevruguin’s court photos were devoted to capturing the court and elites, the court also served him and provided material for his vision. Nasir Al-Din Shah is shown seated at a desk at the lower left surrounded by his personal retinue, rather distant from the photographer. However, the mirrors reflecting the scene show the viewer what might be unseen by Sevruguin. Reflected in the mirror to the top left indicates the front of the same figures we see from the back but in the same image we see himself both from the front and back view (there is a mirror behind Sevruguin also). This picture shows the explicit making of itself, and we observe Sevruguin viewing, almost like a double vision similar to the Tilly Kettle painting. Sevruguin presents himself as a viewer contemplating a scene, but he also represents himself through his photography, so he is both subject and photographer.2 The double roles and representations seen in the mirror’s reflections of this carefully crafted scene serve to show the complexities and contradictions of Nasir al-din Shah’s Iran during the 19th century and the hybrid qualities of Sevruguin’s photography.
1. Bohrer, Frederick Nathaniel. Sevruguin and the Persian Image: Photographs of Iran, 1870-1930. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1999.
2. Bohrer, Frederick Nathaniel. Sevruguin and the Persian Image: Photographs of Iran, 1870-1930. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1999.
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