File:2021.R.15-15v - Iran, Covered Bridge Spanning a Gorge.jpg

English: The album contains 61 albumen photographs of Iran taken by Abdullah Mirza Qajar between 1883 and 1896. Although there are a few bird's-eye views of Tehran and some images of Qajar buildings, the photographs primarily depict buildings in ruins or disrepair locatated near towns and villages or in isolated settings, and are thus representative of the photographic campaigns Qajar made throughout Persia. Locales depicted include Kerman, Khurāsān, Qom, Ray, Dāmghān, Bāstāan, Qazvīn, Ribat-ī Machi, and Radkan. While many of the photographs include horsemen, in only a few are humans the main subject: one photograph depicts a pottery vendor sitting in his shop; another shows fishermen standing along a shore holding their catches, and third depicts bathers at a watering hole.

61 photographs in 1 album : albumen prints ; photographs 28 x 22.3 cm and smaller on mounts 38 x 31 cm in album 39.2 x 33.6 cm.

Biographical or Historical Note: After attending Dār ul-Funun polytechnic school, Iranian photographer, Abdullah Mirza Qajar (1850-1909), studied chemistry and typographic and photographic techniques such as zincography, phototypy, photolithography, and galvanoplasty. After his return to Tehran, Qajar first printed maps of Iranian towns, but soon turned to photography. By 1883, he was a photographer in the Qajar court of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh with the title of Royal Private Photographer. He was sent on assignments to locations throughout Persia. He also taught photography at Dār ul-Funun. After the assassination of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh in 1896, Qajar's commissions decreased. Aside from trips to Europe in 1900 and 1903 accompanying Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh's successor, Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shāh, as special photographer, Qajar seems to have received few new royal commissions. He spent the remainder of his career as head of the Royal Printing Office.