Antoin Sevruguin who was born in the Russian Embassy in Tehran (1840), and was known as a famous and talented Photographer in Tehran and Tabriz. He was thought to be a Russian by Iranians. He introduced himself as a Russian behind some photographs he took to empower the belief.

Antoin Sevruguin went to Tabriz and later to Tehran. He established his photographic studio in Tabriz. Soon he became so famous that he found his way to Mozafar-al-Din shah the crown prince of Qajar dynasty, and became the special photographer of the court. He translated a book about the photographic techniques form “Liber” the famous French photographer and dedicated the translation to the Mozafar-al-Din shah the crown prince.

Antoin Sevruguin

T’blisi before 1870.

Sevruguin had two lifelong obsessions. The first was a cherished desire to record Iran in all its facets on glass plates; the second was to capture light in his photographs the way he so admired in Rembrandt’s paintings.

In addition to his numerous pictures of urban life and portraits made in his famous studio in Tehran, Sevruguin made a photographic inventory of the landscape, archaeological sites, and people of Azarbaijan and continued the project in Kurdistan and Luristan (in southwestern Iran).

It is believed Sevruguin went to Tehran shortly before Mozafar-al-Din shah the crown prince, or with him. He established his photographic studio in Tehran in Ala ud-Dowleh (later Ferdowsi) Avenue. He became soon very famous in Tehran. He accepted the Iranian citizenship, married an Armenian Lady and had several children, among which only a son and a daughter lived through adulthood. He was honored by the Iranian government with the diamond medal of Shir o khorshid (“The Sun and Lion”). He also got an honor gold medal from the Brussels exhibition and another form the Paris exhibition of 1900, together with some other medals and honorary notes.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Institution), Frederick Nathaniel Bohrer
Sevruguin and the Persian Image: Photographs of Iran, 1870-1930
University of Washington Press (October 1999)
ISBN-10: 0295978457
ISBN-13: 978-0295978451