Object Details
- Local Numbers
- FSA A.4 2.12.GN.41.10
- General
- Title and summary note are provided by Shabnam Rahimi-Golkhandan, FSg curatorial research specialist.
- Creator
- Sevruguin, Antoin, 1851-1933
- Names
- Islamic Archives
- Sevruguin, Antoin, 1851-1933
- Smith, Myron Bement, 1897-1970
- Collection Creator
- Smith, Myron Bement, 1897-1970
- Place
- Asia
- Iran
- Tehran (Iran)
- Topic
- Early Photography of Iran
- Topic
- Portrait photography
- Creator
- Sevruguin, Antoin, 1851-1933
- See more items in
- Myron Bement Smith Collection
- Myron Bement Smith Collection / Series 2: The Islamic Archives / 2.12: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs / 2.12.01: Glass Plate Negatives / Glass Plate Negatives: Sets 1-61
- Biographical / Historical
- Antoin Sevruguin is one of the early pioneers of commercial photography in Iran. He arrived in Iran from Tbilisi, Georgia in the mid 1870s to set up shop in Ala al-Dawla street in Tehran. From the early days, Sevruguin's studio was trusted both by the Qajar court and by foreign visitors to Iran. Highly regarded for their artistic ingenuity outside Iran, Sevruguin's photographs of 'ethnic types,' architecture and landscape, and depictions of daily life of Tehran found their way into foreign travelogues, magazines and books. As such, he stands alone in a relatively large group of early Iranian photographers for being recognized and celebrated outside the boundaries of the country. Antoin Sevruguin passed away in 1933, leaving behind only a fraction of his large collection of glass negatives, which is currently in the Archives of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
- Extent
- 1 Glass negative (b&w, 23.9 cm. x 17.8 cm.)
- Date
- Ca. 1900
- Archival Repository
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
- Identifier
- FSA.A.04, Item FSA A.4 2.12.GN.41.10
- Type
- Archival materials
- Glass negatives
- Collection Citation
- The Myron Bement Smith Collection, FSA A.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith.
- Arrangement
- According to Myron B. Smith handwritten document (Myron Bement Smith Collection, Subseries 2.1: Islamic Archives History, Collection Information; Box 60; Folder 44: 47 P Antoine Sevruguin, glass negatives, Iran), Antoin Sevruguin's 696 glass negatives, at the time of their acquisition, were arranged into 61 boxes without any apparent organization. Today they are housed in archival document boxes, essentially duplicating the original arrangement, and stored on shelves. This glass negative was included into "Box 41."
- Collection Rights
- Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
- Genre/Form
- Glass negatives
- Scope and Contents
- "According to the encyclopedia Iranica, Jeanne d'Arc schhool, was one of the two Lazarist French schools of tehran, and "the well-known school for girls to which many of the members of the upper classes sent their daughters, was in operation until the 1979 revolution. In the early 1960s, it had about a thousand pupils in the secondary school and about fifty in its junior school. However, instruction at its secondary school terminated at the tenth grade (Komīsīūn-e mellī-e Yūnesko, II, p. 1211). Many of the more affluent pupils were then sent abroad or continued their studies for the school-leaving certificate at Lycée Razi which offered mixed classes for boys and girls up to the twelfth grade. According to Anīsa Šayḵ-Reżāʼī (pp. 97-98,) the origins of the Jeanne d'Arc school can be traced to two Lazarist schools. The first school was the St. Vincent de Paul school for orphaned girls founded in 1865 by the Daughters of Charity and later renamed Jeanne d'Arc. In the 1920s, the school offered both primary and secondary education at separate classes for Muslim and Armenian students. The Ministry of Education granted the school one hundred tomans per month to support teaching of Persian and financial aid for needy students. The curriculum of the school at the elementary level included arithmetic, dictation, sewing, history and geography, a study of Farāʼed al-adab, and acquaintance with elementary sciences (ʿelm al-ašyāʼ). At the secondary level the curriculum included algebra, geometry, natural sciences, Persian (grammar and reading the text of Kalīla o Demna), hygiene, sewing, and home economy. In 1931 Sister Pauline was the principal of both Jeanne d'Arc and St. Joseph schools indicating the close links between the two institutions. The second school was St. Joseph, a four-year elementary school for girls founded in 1880 by the sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul in the Armenian neighborhood of the Qazvīn Gate quarter (Maḥalla-ye darvāza-ye Qazvīn) with more than two hundred students. Later, the school admitted boys in separate classes. The school enrolled ninety-nine girls and thirty-three boys in 1929. The curriculum included arithmetic, history and geography, sciences, Persian, and French (Nāṭeq, pp. 194, 201, 203). A government grant was given to the school to support teaching of Persian and the admission of fifteen non-paying pupils. Later, in the mid-1930s, this school was renamed Manūčehrī Elementary and High School. In the late 1930s it had an enrollment of about one hundred students and about ten teachers. In 1941, the school closed its Persian program, but its French program continued for foreign pupils. In 1953, its Persian program was revived under the name of Jeanne d'Arc (Dabīrestān-e Žāndārk) with Badr-al-Molūk Pāzārgādī as its principal (Šayḵ-Reżāʼī, p. 97; Wezārat-e farhang, pp. 32-33)."." [Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Curatorial Research Assistant]
- - FSg curatorial research specialist remark on Antoin Sevruguin photo manipulation reads, "Varnish all over the figures. Faces touched up."
- - Handwritten information on slip of paper (from a 1943-1944 cash book, produced by the Bathni Brothers, Tehran) reads, "Jean d'Arc School." [Myron Bement Smith Collection, Subseries 2.1: Islamic Archives History, Collection Information]
- - Myron Bement Smith handwritten caption in English reads, "47.P; Box 41.10: Tehran. Jean d'Arc School. Girls." [Myron Bement Smith Collection, Subseries 2.1: Islamic Archives History, Collection Information; Box 60; Folder 44: 47 P: Antoine Sevruguin, glass negatives, Iran]
- Collection Restrictions
- Collection is open for research.
- Record ID
- ebl-1585218933221-1585218933948-1
