43490308

The Smithsonian Institution
ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN: Constructions of Masculinity, Representations

of Power
Author(s): ALI BEHDAD
Source: Ars Orientalis, Vol. 43 (2013), pp. 32-45
Published by: Freer Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian Institution and Department of the
History of Art, University of Michigan
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43490308
Accessed: 18-11-2017 21:11 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Smithsonian Institution is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Ars Orientalis
This content downloaded from 193.204.40.97 on Sat, 18 Nov 2017 21:11:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
/';-=09 )(8* =-0/']
ALI BEHDAD
ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN
Constructions of Masculinity, Representations of Power
i
Abstract
Photographer unknown (possibly This essay considers examples of Qajar portrait photography to highlight aesthetic
Lugi Pesce), Portrait of Nasir al-Din concerns and to elaborate its sociopolitical implications in the context of nine-
Shah, ca. 1 850s. The Metropolitan
teenth-century Iran. Portrait photography in Qajar Iran was not merely a means of
Museum of Art, New York, Gift of
Charles Wilkinson, 1977.683.22. self-expression or an inscription of monarchical and patriarchal order, but it was a
powerful tool that enabled and perpetuated patriarchal and monarchical relations
of power. Put otherwise, the meaning or significance of the portrait does not solely
reside in the image itself but in the uses to which it is put.
ROYAL PORTRAITS AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS of the ruler, as B. W.

Robinson states, have always played a crucial role in monarchical power in Iran.1
Whether in the form of bas-reliefs during the Achaemenid and Sassanid dynas-
ties, the royal representations of Safavid kings in the illustrated manuscripts of the
period, or the more Westernized portrait paintings of Qajar monarchy, Iranian
rulers have relied on portraiture to symbolize and consolidate their power. The
relationship between visual representation of the ruler and dynastic power, how-
ever, found its most distinctive articulation during the reign of Fath Ali Shah of
Qajar (reigned 1798-1834). As Leyla Diba points out, during his reign, "images
of the ruler, in myriad forms, sizes, and media, played an integral role in the nine-
teenth-century exercise of power, both at home and abroad."2
In light of the long-standing relationship between royal portraiture and politi-
cal power in Iran and its most prominent manifestation during the Qajar monar-
chy, it is not surprising that with the introduction of photography during the reign
of Nasir al-Din Shah (reigned 1848-96), the portrait photograph should become
the quintessential representation of monarchical power in Iran. Indeed, at the ori-
gin of photography in Iran is the royal portrait photograph, for photography pro-
vided Qajar rulers with an efficient and easily reproducible means of showing their
autocratic power to their subjects. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather,
Fath Ali Shah, who had continued the tradition of portrait painting by encouraging
and supporting new artists at his court, Nasir al-Din Shah successfully displaced
that artistic convention with photographic portraiture as he procured the means
and conditions for the development of this new art/technology to consolidate his
diminishing power during an era of British and Russian indirect colonialism in
Iran.3 The Qajar royalty, and especially Nasir al-Din Shah and his sons Zell al-Sul-
tan, the governor of Isfahan, and Mozafir al-Din Shah, the governor of Tabriz and
later his successor, appreciated the camera both in its honorific function as a tool to
produce images of themselves and their subjects, and in its repressive function as a
means to consolidate and display their dynastic power.
33
2
Luigi Montabone, Portrait of Nasir While becoming an amateur photographer himself, Nasir al-Din Shah, for
ai-Din Shah in the Golestan Palace,
example, employed both foreign and resident photographers as early as the 1850s
ca. 1860s. The Golestan Palace
to create a large archive of his dynastic rule. Unlike his Ottoman counterpart, Sul-
Photographic Archive, Tehran, Iran.
tan Abdul Hamid, who avoided the camera like it was a plague, the Qajar king took
advantage of every opportunity to be photographed. In addition to employing for-
eign photographers, he provided the conditions for training Iranians to take advan-
tage of the new medium, and he actively encouraged the powerful elite to accept
photography as a pleasurable pastime and a means of self-documentation. To
accomplish his goal of advancing photography in his country, the shah asked Amin
al-Dowleh, his prime minister who was then in Europe on a diplomatic mission, to
hire a professional photographer who could introduce Iranians to new techniques
of photography. Amin al-Dowleh subsequently hired the little-known French pho-
tographer Francis Carlhian4 and brought him to Iran in 1859. Nasir al-Din Shahs
contribution to the development of photography culminated in his establishment
of a photographic institute, Akas Khaneh-e Mobarak-e Homauni (the royal pho-
tography studio), in one of the buildings of the Golestan Palace. He had Carlhian
and other foreign photographers train two palace attendants, Mirza Husein Ali and
Agha Reza Khan, in current methods of photography in order to run this institute
of photography.5 In addition, after the arrival of Carlhian and on the order of the
shah, a new department of photography was created in Dar al-Funun (the polytech-
nic institute), catering mostly to government business. Nasir al-Din Shahs contri-
34 ALI BEHDAD
3
Nasir al-Din Shah, Self Portrait, bution to the development of photography also included the publication of several
ca. 1860. The Golestan Palace
manuals to provide Iranians with technical knowledge about the new medium. The
first such manual, Ketab-e Aks (Photography book), was written by Mirza Kazem
by command of the shah and dates to 1864.6
What follows provides examples of Qajar portrait photography to highlight its
aesthetic concerns and to elaborate on its sociopolitical implications in the context
of nineteenth-century Iran. That the earliest photographers of the Qajar court were
either Europeans or local artists trained by Europeans meant the tradition of photo-
graphic portraiture in Iran was deeply indebted both aesthetically and stylistically
to its European counterpart. Three early photographs of Nasir al-Din Shah - the
first by an unknown photographer (possibly Luigi Pesce; fig. 1), the second by Luigi
Montabone (fig. 2), and the third by the shah himself (fig. 3) - oifer early examples
of this aesthetic and stylistic indebtedness. In all three images, what may be called
the cult of the individual is underscored compositionally.
In the European tradition of early photography, as Inge Morath and Graham
Clarke have suggested, the portrait photograph aimed to represent a verisimilar
image of the individual, expressing his or her inner being by engaging in a form
of character revelation.7 Like European photographic portraits, these images of
Nasir al-Din Shah involve "a sense of the inner self declaring its 'being in terms
of a single composite image, sans history, society, or conflict," to borrow the words
of Clarke.8 All three photos depict the shah with a serious and stern look and
35 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN
wearing European-style royal costumes and headdresses.9 In all of the images,
he either leans against or stands next to a chair, which, though a technical neces-
sity in early photography due to slow shutter speeds and the long exposure time
required to take a picture, nonetheless codifies him within a European frame of
reference. His erect posture, slight tilting of the head, and the resting of an arm on
his hip recall similar corporal expressions seen in nineteenth-century European
photographic portraits. In all of these photographs, the shah stands alone, unac-
companied by court attendants or an entourage, in a setting that bears no resem-
blance to the opulent and bustling palace he inhabited. Even in the photo he took
of himself, with the exception of a highly ornate chair, the nondescript backdrop
covers his surroundings and thus decontextualizes him. As a result, these images
do not express the communal, conflicted, and socially active culture of the Qajar
court in which the shah was inscribed. They instead engage in an "ideology of the
charismatic individual or celebrity," which, as Roger Cardinal has argued, defined
the genre of early portrait photography in Europe.10 What these photographs
reveal is the representation of a singular being whose physical appearance and
facial expression are meant to convey a sense of his individuality. The seemingly
confident posture of the king, the stern and serious gaze, and his elaborate cos-
tume and decorated sword align these early portrait photographs of the shah with
a European model of portraiture in which the cult of individual celebrity is valo-
rized. The photographs, in sum, represent a generic image of an individual ruler.
These images also seem indebted to another European tradition, namely,
amateur photography in mid-nineteenth-century France that was advocated and
practiced by such "proselytizers" as Francis Wey, Henri de Lacretelle, and Victor
Regnault.11 Wary of the rapid proliferation of photographic portraits by profes-
sional studios, which Wey and others saw as detrimental to the artistic possibilities
of photography, some mid-nineteenth-century artists such as Regnault engaged
in a form of photographic portraiture that avoided the elaborately detailed and
explicit images produced by professional studios. They preferred instead to imbue
their portraits with psychological depth and subtle aesthetic insights. As Larie
Dahlberg points out, Regnaults images, for example, are marked by a private and
intimate approach that is "unceremonious, offhand, and unaffected" and in which
"accessories and props ... appear infrequently"12 The portraits of the shah recall
the amateur photographic portraits taken by Regnault in their minimal uses of
accessories and props, as well as their unaffected and improvised execution. The
plain and unsophisticated backdrop in the picture that the shah took of himself
therefore not only decontextualizes him in relation to his social milieu, but it also
re-inscribes the image within European amateur photography of the mid-nine-
teenth century.
36 ALI BEHDAD
Still, to the extent to which every portrait is "a sign whose purpose is both the
description of an individual and the inscription of social identity," as John Tagg
explains, the portrait photographs of the shah also underscore the social status of
the monarch.13 Put another way, the images not only describe the character of an
individual, but they also draw attention to the fact that the individual who is being
represented is a member of royalty. In all three photographs, for example, the shah
wears costumes similar to those of European sovereigns, or he appears in military-
style uniforms to project a visibly powerful and kingly image. In addition, Nasir
al-Din Shah's somber and grave look, not to mention the ornate sword and chair,
also serve as signifiers of his status as a potentate. In short, all three portraits aim to
construct, in a willful and controlled fashion, an image of power.
Perhaps in the context of their function to produce a royal image, the shah con-
sidered these portraits inadequate in fully representing his identity as a powerful
ruler. The second and third photographs, which appear in personal albums belong-
ing to Nasir al-Din Shah, include his handwritten notes. A comparison of how he
describes the photographs in these personal captions speaks to his understanding
of these images as inadequate representations of his royal being. With the image
he took of himself, he uses a technical term for the photograph. The lower hand-
written caption reads, "In aks-e khodam va khodam dar andaron endakht-e am,"
which translates as, "this is a photograph of me that I took inside the palace." lhe
more elaborate calligraphic writing above the image, which was supplied perhaps
by a court artist, is in an ornate and exaggerated language that identifies the shah
as the all-knowing spirit ( roh al-alemin). The handwritten note below refers to the
shahs wish to underscore his own skill as a photographer and identifies the place
where the photograph was taken. In contrast, what is notable about the handwrit-
ten note below the other photograph is the king s word choice in reference to what
the image depicts. Instead of describing it as "aks-e man ast dar emarat-e Tehran
which would translate as "this is my photograph at a palace building in Tehran,"
he states, "shakl-e man-ast dar emarat Tehran," which can be roughly translated as
"this is the appearance or representation of me at the building in Tehran." Nasir al-
Din Shah's nontechnical choice of shaki instead of aks to describe the photograph
taken by Montabone speaks not only to the evolution of photographic vocabulary
during his reign but also to the split between a perception of the image as a realist
representation of his being and the recognition that the image is merely an outline
or configuration of his being. It is a representation that cannot fully capture the
essence of his royal identity. That, as in the other image, he feels compelled to state
the location where the photograph was taken further suggests his desire to contex-
tualize th image in terms of his sociopolitical status as a king by referring to the
fact that the photograph was taken in his palace. The captions, in short, suggest the
monarch considered the photographic portrait merely represented a fragment of
his identity, which meant the image required further explanation and contextual-
ization for it to be comprehended even in the case of a personal album.
In light of this recognition, it is not coincidental that as Nasir al-Din Shah
became more actively engaged in producing his photographic portraits as projec-
tions of his monarchical power, the portraits more elaborately depicted his regal
surroundings and social milieu. A portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah by Antoin Sevru-
guin (fig. 4), a commercial photographer in late nineteenth-century Iran and an
official photographer of the Qajar court, provides a representative example. As in
the other photographic portraits, here the monarch wears a regal, long coat and
stares confidently into the camera with that familiar serious, stern, and melancholic
look. Unlike the earlier amateur portraits, however, this image depicts the king in
his opulent Golestan Palace sitting on the Takht-e Tavus (Peacock Throne).14 The
opulent surroundings not only refer to the social identity of the shah as a powerful
monarch, but they also historicize his rule by affiliating it with that of Nader Shah-e
Afshar. The shah poses by sitting on a replica of the Peacock Throne, the most
prominent and nostalgic signifier of Iranian imperial culture, which was brought
to Iran by Nader Shah after his conquest of the Mughal empire in 1738. This asso-
ciation with the Peacock Throne is meant to affiliate the Qajar monarch, whose
sovereignty was utterly undermined at this historical juncture by the indirect colo-
nialism of Russia and England, with a powerful ruler of the Afshar dynasty and to
convey a sense of grandeur and power at a time of political weakness. As such, the
photographic portrait does not aim to describe an individual identity or to express
his interiority, but instead it serves as an idealized inscription of his dynastic rule.
That this and similar portrait photographs are found in several albums from
the period suggests the court widely distributed such images of power, thus dem-
onstrating the attentiveness of the Qajar royalty to the political function of portrait
photography as a way to project an image of strength and confidence as well as
to consolidate its waning power. Portraits of the shah and his sons, both in larger
formats and cartes de visite , were not only distributed and collected by dignitaries
and local officials as symbols of veneration for and obedience to the Qajar ruler, but
they were also displayed in government offices and public buildings and shown at
official ceremonies as signifiers of his royal presence when the shah himself could
not attend.15 In this way, royal portrait photographs, beyond their descriptive func-
tion, conferred a certain social and political status. As such, the royal portrait pho-
tograph, I wish to argue, was not just a representation of power but productive of it.
To the extent to which the photographic portrait in Qajar Iran was encouraged
by its productive function in the political ideology of monarchical sovereignty, a
more communal or contextualized aesthetic sensibility marked the genre of por-
38 ALI BEHDAD
4
Antoin Sevruguin, Nasir traiture in Iran during the late Qajar era. Although photographic portraits of indi-
al-Din Shah on the Peacock
vidual members of royalty did not disappear as indigenous and local artists took a
Throne, ca. 1880. Freer Gallery
of Art and Arthur M. Sackler
more active role in photographing the Qajar court, most of the royal portraits taken
Gallery Archives, Smithsonian

by the courts photographers were either group portraits or images of the shah
Institution. FSA A. 1501 accompanied by court attendants and servants. In contrast to early portraits of the
ruler, the compositions of these images contextualize him within his sociopoliti-
cal milieu. Portraits of Nasir al-Din Shah from the Golestan Palace photographic
archive provide examples of this shift in Qajar court photography from representa-
tions of the individual ruler to a more socially situated portrait of the monarch (figs.
5-8). In each of these images, the shah is centrally located in the middle foreground
of the photograph to bring into focus his social and political prominence as the
ruler. All of the attendants are located behind him or in the background. They often
hold items that are meant to symbolize their subservient status and dutiful service
to the shah. In two photographs (figs. 5 and 6), in spite of the fact that the shah is
on a hunting trip, he does not demonstrate any cheerfulness or lightheartedness.
Instead, he stiffly and sternly glares into the camera, an expression that refers to his
piety and power.
5,6
Photographer unknown (most Two other images (figs. 7 and 8) compositionally draw attention to the royal
likely Agha Reza Akas Bashi),
stature of the shah by completely marginalizing court attendants and officials to the
Nasir al-Din Shah on a hunting
image frame. In these photos, the shah is dressed in his royal costume and sits on
expedition, ca. 1880s. The Golestan
Palace Photographic Archive, what appears to be the only chair available. Note that in the second image (fig. 8)
Tehran, Iran. everyone around him either stands up or sits on the ground in a deferential manner.
This projects a sense of confidence and fortitude as well as absolute rule. Everything
in these images, from the ornate dishes in front of the shah to the radical distance
between him and his subjects, distinguishes him as the sole figure of power, indeed
as the divine subject of adoration and adulation. As such, these photographs reveal
a compositional and stylistic negotiation between a European notion of portrait
photography as the trace of an individual and a local Qajar conception of the por-
trait as a dynastic image. They deploy elements of composition and style associ-
ated with European portrait photography to fashion a localized form of portraiture
that is attentive to the sociopolitical exigencies of the Qajar court. The empty fore-
ground space before the shah and the blurring of the court attendants and officials
in the background or on the margins direct attention to the monarch as a supreme
being, perhaps even as the representative of the divine, while it highlights the social
character of his dynastic rule.
40 ALI BEHDAD
7,8
Photographer unknown, (left) While constructive of monarchical power, the compositionally contextualized
Nasir al-Din Shah in the Dushan
character of Iranian portrait photography also brings into focus the patriarchal
Tapeh Palace, (right) Portrait of
nature of Qajar society as well as the role of photography in perpetuating patriar-
Nasir al-Din Shah, ca. 1880s. The
Golestan Palace Photographic
chy itself. One of the most striking aspects of Qajar photography is the conspicu-
Archive, Tehran, Iran. ous absence of female relatives in group or family portraits. With the exception
of two early private albums of Nasir al-Din Shah, in which appear several images
he took of his wives and daughters, hardly any photograph of female members of
the court exists. Indeed, unlike their Ottoman counterparts, Qajar royalty tended
to keep their wives, sisters, and daughters away from the gaze of the camera, even
while endeavoring to deploy modern technology to fashion a progressive image of
their rule.16 The absence of women in group portraits cannot simply be explained
away as an expression of Islamic piety or a way to safeguard family honor, espe-
cially given the currency of eroticized images of courtesans in Qajar Iran. Rather,
it must be understood both as expressive of a local form of homosociality that ren-
dered women invisible and as constructive of the patriarchal structure of power
that confined women to the margins of Qajar society. While Qajar royalty projected
an image of modern subjectivity onto their photographic portraits and in their
enthusiastic embrace of the leading technology of representation, they nonetheless
espoused traditional values as fathers and patriarchs. The massive archive of Qajar
portraits of men in contrast to the dearth of portraits of female subjects attests then
to the way photography was used to reaffirm traditional gender roles and to per-
petuate a patriarchal power structure.
The family portrait of the Qajar prince Etezad al-Saltaneh (fig. 9) provides a typ-
ical example. Symbolically positioned in the center, the prince is seated on a chair
and is surrounded by his sons and brothers to highlight his privileged, patriarchal
position as the head of the household. His elder sons, perhaps from different wives,
and younger brothers stand behind him, while his younger sons, perhaps the chil-
dren of his youngest and favorite wife, sit next to him. The stark absence of wives,
sisters, and daughters in this and similar photographs underscores their marginal-
ized role within the family structure, an absence that also speaks to a homosocial
notion of male honor that prevents the public exposure of respectable and virtu-
ous women. In spite of the predominantly Westernized appearance of the sitters,
the photograph adopts a traditional view of family, one that points to the princes
9
Photographer unknown, Family conscious attempt to use the new medium to represent and reaffirm his own privi-
Portrait of Prince Etezad al-Saltaneh,
leged status as the proud father of male children and as the family patriarch. In this
ca. 1880s. The Golestan Palace
type of representation, there is no space for mothers, sisters, and daughters. Their
absence is a visible sign of gender segregation. In this sense, portrait photography
is not merely an inscription or representation of patriarchy - it is a modern tool to
maintain and perpetuate it.
An anecdote I know broadens the implications of this discussion of royal por-
trait photography in Qajar Iran for the study of the genre itself. On the second day of
his 1867 visit to Sabzevar - the city of my birth - Nasir al-Din Shah asked his court
photographer, Agha Reza Khan Akas-Bashi, to take a photograph of the Islamic
philosopher Haji Mulla Hadi Sabzevari (fig. 10), who happens to be my great-great-
uncle. Perhaps the shah wanted to impress the philosopher, who apparently had
not yet encountered photography. Upon seeing his own photographic portrait,
Haji Mulla Hadi was in awe. In one version, recounted by Hakim al-Mamalek, the
philosopher s reaction is described as being utterly astonished or stunned ( kamal-e
tahayor ), while in another, told by Etemad al-Saltaneh, he responded with extreme
bewilderment ( nahayet-e mota jeb). 17 What is noteworthy in this anecdote, and
what I have hoped to demonstrate in this essay, is an understanding of royal portrait
photography that shifts the focus from viewing it as a representation of power to a
consideration of its function in the production of power. What is significant about
the photographic practice in this instance is not what the image actually represents,
but the fact that it is an exercise of power by the sovereign. The photograph, in other
words, is meant as a demonstration of Nasir al-Din Shahs divine power. Like a god,
he can produce verisimilar images of his subjects. Little is remarkable about the
ghostly image except its instantiation of the power of representation itself.
Portrait photography has traditionally been considered a representation or vali-
dation of an individual identity. In more recent years, art historians have drawn
attention to the socially encoded nature of such representations. Graham Clarke,
for example, has argued that "the portraits meaning exists within wider codes of
42 ALI BEHDAD
IO
Agha Reza Akas-Bashi, Haj i Mulla meaning: of space, of posture, of dress, of marks, of social distinction. In short the
Hadi Sabzevari, 1867. The Golestan
portraits meaning exists within a world of significance which has, in turn, already
Palace Photographic Archive,
framed and fixed the individual."18 This contextualized understanding of portrait
Tehran, Iran.
photography, while a welcome departure from the traditional perception of the
portrait as a trace of a unique personality, nonetheless maintains a semiotic view
of the genre that regards it as the reflection of a socially inscribed identity. What I
have argued in this essay, however, is a notion of portrait photography that attends
to its productive function in the construction and consolidation of power. Portrait
photography in Qajar Iran, I suggest, was not merely a means of self-expression or
an inscription of monarchical and patriarchal order but rather a powerful tool that
enabled and perpetuated patriarchal and monarchical relations of power. As the
anecdote of Haji Mulla Hadi Sabzevari s first encounter with photography dem-
onstrates, the meaning or significance of the portrait does not solely reside in the
image itself but the uses into which it is put.
Ali Behdad is John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature and Chair of the English
Department at UCLA. He is the author of Belated Travelers : Orientalism in the Age
of Colonial Dissolution (1994) and A Forgetful Nation: On Immigration and Cultural
Identity in the United States (2005). He is currently working on a book tentatively
titled Contact Vision : On Photography and Modernity in the Middle East. E-mail:
behdad@humnet.ucla.edu
NOTES
1 See B. W. Robinson, "Persian Royal became increasingly popular among the

Portraiture and the Qajars," in Qajarelite
Iran:classes, who used them for a broad
Political Social and Cultural Changerange of political and social agendas. A
1800-1 925 , ed. Edmund Bosworth anddiscussion of dress reform during this
Carole Hillenbrand (Edinburgh: period is beyond the scope of this paper.
Edinburgh University Press, 1983), For an introduction to the dress code of
291-310. the period, see Gillian Vogelsang-East-
2 Leyla Diba, "Images of Power and the wood, An Introduction to Qajar Era Dress
Power of Images: Intention and Response(Rotterdam: Barjesteh Van Wallwijk van
in Early Qajar Painting (1785-1834)," in Doom & Company's Uitgevers-
Royal Persian Paintings : The Qajar Epoch maatschappij, 2002).
1785-1925 , ed. Layla S. Diba and 1 0 Roger Cardinal, "Nadar and the
Maryam Ekhtiar (New York: Brooklyn Photographic Portrait in Nineteenth-
Museum of Art in association with I. B. Century France," in Graham Clarke, ed.,
Tauris Publishers, 1998), 31. The Portrait in Photography (London:
3 A discussion of what I call "indirect Reaktion Books, 1992), 6.
colonialism" of Qajar Iran by Britain and 1 1 For a discussion of this genre of photog-
Russia is beyond the scope of this essay; raphy, see Larie Dahlberg, From Victor
for an elaborate discussion of the topic, Regnault and the Advance of Photography
see Firuz Kasemzadeh, Russia and Britain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
in Persia : Imperial Ambitions in Qajar Press, 2005). I wish to thank Luke
Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012). Gartlan for bringing the tradition of
4 His name is also spelled Carlhie in amateur photography to my attention.
different references to him. 12 Dahlberg, From Victor Regnault , 90.
5 The works of these early photographers 1 3 John Tagg, The Burden of Representation:
appear in many albums in the Golestan Essays on Photographies and Histories
Palace Photographic Archive. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
6 For a more detailed discussion of the Press, 1993), 37.
shah's role in the dissemination of 14 Although this throne is called the
photography and photographic manuals, Peacock Throne, it is not the original
see Mohammad Reza Tahmasbpour, treasure that Nader Shah of the Afsharid
Nasir al-Din Shah Akas : Piramoun dynasty captured during his conquest of
Tarikh-e Akasi Iran [Nasir al-Din Shah, the Mughal empire in 1738. This throne
the photographer king: On the history of is the so-called Naderi Throne, which was
photography in Iran] (Tehran: Nashr-e built for Muhammad Shah Qajar in 1836
Tarikh-e Iran, 2002), 172-73. and was meant to resemble the original
7 Inge Morath, Portraits (New York: Peacock Throne captured by the
Aperture, 1986); Graham Clarke, The legendary king.
Photograph (Oxford: Oxford University 1 5 For a discussion of how royal images
Press, 1997), 101. were used in the service of authority and
8 Clarke, Photograph, 102. power during the Qajar period by being
9 It is worth noting that I am not suggest- displayed in government and other
ing these European-style dresses were public buildings, see Diba, "Images of
only worn for the purposes of the Power," 30-49.
photographs. Indeed, during the reign of 16 In their discussion of the photographic
Nasir al-Din Shah, Western-style dresses representations of Qajar women, Kadijeh
44 ALI BEHDAD
Mohammadi Nameghi and Carmen
Prez Gonzlez cite a notice of January 8,
1877, that announces the establishment
of the photo studio in Dar al-Funun and
states the presence of women is prohib-
ited in the studio. See Kadijeh Moham-
madi Nameghi and Carmen Prez
Gonzlez, "From Sitters to Photogra-
phers: Women in Photography from the
Qajar Era to the 1930s," History of Photog-
raphy 37, no. 1 (January 2013): 14-31.
1 7 Yahya Zoka, Tarikh-e Akasi va Akasaan
Peeshgaam dar Iran [The history of
photography and pioneer photographers
in Iran] (Tehran: Offset Press, 1997)/
48-53.
1 8 Clarke, Portrait in Photography , 3.

43490308

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

43490308

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

The Smithsonian Institution

ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN: Constructions of Masculinity, Representations

ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

Constructions of Masculinity, Representations of Power

ROYAL PORTRAITS AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS of the ruler, as B. W.

35 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

37 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

Gallery Archives, Smithsonian

39 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

41 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

43 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

1 See B. W. Robinson, "Persian Royal became increasingly popular among the

1 8 Clarke, Portrait in Photography , 3.

45 ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN

Potrebbero piacerti anche