Charles Eugene de Ujfalvy de Mezo-Kovesd
1879
Plate from Expédition scientifique franthaise en Russie, en Sibérie et dans le Turkestan. Atlas anthropologique des peuples du Ferghanah, first edition

Albumen print
Bonhams - London
Courtesy of Bonhams, London (Sale 15313 - India and Beyond in Books and Photography, Lot 384 - 26 Oct 2007)
 
The original work had 70 albuemen prints mounted within printed borders. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1879
 
Scarce ethnographic record. The author was an Austro-Hungarian linguist, whose early worked focused on the Finnish language, but who later became interested in Central Asian ethnography. The photographs were taken by a local photographer, Kazlowski, in a temporary studio at Margilan, then the capital of Ferghana which straddles the borders of modern Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. This unique position appealed to Mezö-Kövesd, incorporating all the ethnicities of the region and offering him, by virtue of its isolation, the most 'pure' examples.
 
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