Antoin Sevruguin

Antoin Sevruguin Khan (Persian: خان)
Sevruguin in Vienna. Photo taken before 1880
Born	1851 (1851) Russian Embassy, Tehran, Sublime State of Persia
Died	1933 (aged 81–82) Tehran, Imperial State of Iran
Resting place	Doulab Cemetery, Tehran
Nationality	Russian
Known for	Painting, photography
Spouse	Louise Gourgenian
Children	Seven, including André Sevruguin
Patron(s)	Naser al-Din Shah

Antoin Sevruguin (Persian: آنتوان سورگین; 1851–1933), known as Antoin Khan (Persian: آنتوان خان) was an Iranian photographer of Armenian-Georgian descent, in Persia during the reign of the Qajar dynasty (1785–1925).

Early life

Born into a Russian family of Armenian-Georgian origin in the Russian embassy of Tehran, Iran: Antoin Sevruguin was one of the many children of Vasily Sevryugin and a Georgian "Ms. Ashin". Vasily Sevryugin (or Vassil de Sevruguin) was a Russian diplomat to Tehran. Achin had raised her children in Tbilisi, Georgia because she was denied her husband's pension. After Vassil died in a horse riding accident Antoin gave up the art form of painting and took up photography to support his family. His brothers Kolia and Emanuel helped him set up a studio in Tehran on Ala al-dawla Street (today Ferdowsi St.).

Career

Practice and themes

Sevruguin often focused on portraying the everyday lives of ordinary people, capturing the rich diversity of Persian society. His work depicted scenes from lively bazaars and tranquil countryside, along with poignant moments of family life. In addition, Sevruguin's portfolio frequently featured portraits of royalty, nobility, and cultural figures, highlighting the intricate costumes and detailed architectural elements of the time. His ability to seamlessly blend artistic expression with ethnographic documentation rendered his work a valuable historical chronicle and a tribute to the opulent cultural legacy of Persia.

Royalty, nobility, and cultural figures

Antoin Sevruguin signature

Many of Antoin's photographs were taken from 1870-1930. Because Sevruguin spoke Persian as well as other languages, he was capable of communicating with different social strata and tribes from his country Iran. His photos of the royal court, harems, mosques, and other religious monuments were compared to those of other Western photographers in Persia. The reigning Shah, Nasir al-Din Shah (reigned from 1846–1896) took a special interest in photography, and many royal buildings and events were portrayed by Sevruguin.

Landscape photography

Because Antoin Sevruguin traveled extensively around Qajar Iran, his photographs provide a vital visual record of the country as it existed in his time. His journeys allowed him to capture a wide array of images that document the diverse landscapes, architecture, and daily life of pre-modernized Tehran and beyond. Sevruguin's photographs offer a glimpse into an era before significant modernization transformed the city and its surroundings. His images include detailed depictions of monuments, bridges, and landscapes that have since undergone considerable change. Through his lens, we can observe the intricate designs of historic structures, the traditional attire of the people, and the natural beauty of the Iranian countryside, all of which contribute to a deeper understanding of Iran's cultural and historical heritage during the late Qajar period.

Ethnographical photography

Some of Sevruguin's portraitures fed preexisting stereotypes of Easterners but had commercial value, and today, they are proven to be historical records of regional dress. Photographic studios in the nineteenth century advertised a type of picture known in French as "types". These were portraits of typical ethnic groups and their occupation. They informed the European viewer, unfamiliar with Persian culture, about the looks of regional dress, handcraft, religion, and professions. Photographing regional costumes was an accepted method of ethnological research in the nineteenth century. Many European ethnological museums bought Sevruguin portraiture to complement their scientific collection. Museums collected pictures of merchants in the bazaar, members of a Zurkhana (a wrestling arena), dervishes, gatherings of crowds to see the Ta'zieh (Persian dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Shite Imams), people engaged in Shiite rituals, and more. Sevruguin's portraits were also spread as postcards with the text: 'Types persans' (French for Persian types). Sevruguin was a photographer who had no boundaries in portraying people of all social classes and ethnic backgrounds. He portrayed members of the Persian royal family as well as beggars, fellow countrymen of Iran or Westerners, farmers working fields, rug weavers at work, army officers, religious officials, Zoroastrians, Armenians, Lurs, Georgians, Kurds, Shasavan, Assyrians, and Gilak.

Sevruguin's Studio

Many Westerners who lived in Persia and travelers who visited the country brought back photographs from Antoin Sevruguin, often mentioning him in their travelogues of the time. Sevruguin's photographic studio, located on Avenue Ala al-Dawla, was one among several photographic studios on that street. Local residents could have their pictures taken in his studio, often posing in front of a painted backdrop. Most photographs were captured as glass negatives and printed as albumen prints. These prints frequently featured a logo with Sevruguin's name on one side. However, many 19th-century tourists found his name challenging to spell in Western languages, leading to various misspellings such as Sevraguine, Sevrugin, Sevriogin, Segruvian, and Serunian. Phonetically, his name was spelled "Sevr-joe-gien."

Vandalism

In 1908 the world was denied the rich collection of Sevruguin's images when 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 seven thousand plus 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.

Legacy

After his death from a kidney infection, Sevruguin's images resurfaced. He was survived by seven children from his marriage to Louise Gourgenian.

In 1951–1952, an American historian of Iranian Islamic architecture, Myron Bement Smith, learned that 692 plates on glass by Sevrugian were up for sale at the American Presbyterian Mission in Tehran. Smith bought the images for USD 200, and when he died, his widow Katharine Smith donated the photo plates archive to the Smithsonian Institution. Only 696 of Sevruguin's negatives survive today.

The small exhibit curated by Massumeh Farhad, "Antoin Sevruguin and the Persian Image" (2001) was held at the Sackler Museum of Harvard University. The Runa Islam exhibition "Projects 95: Runa Islam" (2011) at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) featured the work "Emergence" (2011), that had been derived from one of Sevruguin's images.

Gallery

• 
  A beggar in Tehran
• 
  Naser al-Din Shah Qajar
• 
  Kurdish woman, National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Netherlands
• 
  Two Ladies and a Child Reposing in the Harem, Brooklyn Museum
• 
  Vladimir Kossogovsky, commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade. Pictured in 1900, Tehran.
• 
  Pahlevani and zoorkhaneh rituals
• 
  Girl Adorned in Silver Jewelry
• 
  Men with a live lion in Iran.
• 
  Reza Khan (later Reza Shah) as Qajar Iran's War Minister
• 
  Arthur Churchill Bailward
• 
  Naser al-Din Shah Qajar
• 
  Niẓām al-Mulk
• 
  Dervish

Sources

• L.A. Ferydoun Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, Gillian M.Vogelsang-Eastwood (eds.), Sevruguin's Iran / Iran az negah Sevruguin, Late nineteenth century photographs of Iran from the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Netherlands, Teheran/Rotterdam 1378/1999.
• Bohrer, Frederick N., ED. Sevruguin and the Persian Image. London: University of Washington Press, 1999.
• Iraj Afshar, ‘Some remarks on the early history of photography in Iran’ in Qajar Iran; political, social and cultural change, 1800-1925, E.Bosworth, C. Hillenbrand (eds.), Edinburgh 1983, pp. 262–2.
• Iraj Afshar, Ganjine-ye aks-haye Iran. hamrah-e tarikhche-ye vorud-e akkasi be Iran, A treasury of early Iranian Photographs together with a concise account of how photography was first introduced in Iran, Teheran 1371/1992.
• Exhibition of Antoin Sevruguin's Photographs (Archived 2009-10-25) at geocities.com
• Myron Bement Smith Collection, Subseries 2.12: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs
• Stephen Arpee Collection of Sevruguin Photographs

Further reading

• Scheiwiller, Staci G. (2018). "Relocating Sevruguin: Contextualizing the Political Climate of the Iranian Photographer Antoin Sevruguin (c. 1851–1933)". In Ritter, Markus; Scheiwiller, Staci G. (eds.). The Indigenous Lens?: Early Photography in the Near and Middle East. De Gruyter. pp. 145–170. ISBN 978-3110590876.
• Vorderstrasse, Tasha, ed. (2020). Antoin Sevruguin: Past and Present. Volume 40 of Oriental Institute Museum Publications. University of Chicago. ISBN 9781614910572.

External links

• Sevruguin's Images of the Orient: Cultural Migrants Between Armenia and Persia
• Antoin Sevruguin Photographs, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
• Antoin Sevruguin photographs of Persia, 1880s-1890s, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Accession No. 2017.R.25. The 97 photographs in this collection are representative of Antoin Sevruguin's all-encompassing documentation of Persia, and comprise a mixture of studio portraits, outdoor vernacular scenes, and landscapes.