“Qajar Persia” in the eyes of Italian photographer hits bookstores

TEHRAN,Feb.5(MNA) -- Pictures taken by the Italian photographer Luigi Montabone have recently been published in a book named “The Qajar Persia”. Compiled by Mojgan Tariqati, the bilingual book was edited by Iraj Afshar. Shahriar Adl and Mohammad Sattari have written a preface for the book released by Mirdashti Publications. The book contains 71 photos taken by Montabone. The photos are collected from three albums; two of them are now in Tehran’s Golestan Palace and another is kept in Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, Tariqati mentioned in book’s prelude. She mentioned that Montabone has added or removed photos from albums. For example, he removed four photos of ladies, three of them were Italians and one of them was Armenian lady from Tbilisi, from the albums dedicated to the Golestan Palace. Instead, the albums contain photos featuring urban landscapes, people’s social culture, historical sites, people’s costumes, jobs as well as people from different social classes. Arguably, Luigi Montabone (? – 1877) might be called the first and only Italian photographer in nineteenth century in Iran. He was commissioned to join an Italian delegation to Persia to take pictures of anything that could be of interest to the members of this delegation. The mission, consisting of sixteen persons, mostly diplomats and scholars, left Geneva in 1862 for Constantinople, and from there travelled via Tbilisi, Yerevan, Tabriz, and Qazvin to Tehran. The delegation aimed to establish diplomatic relations and to promote commercial affairs. Montabone not only took portraits of all sorts of people, but also took photographs of a variety of architectural structures, landscapes and city views. He climbed buildings or hills to find beautiful panoramas or just the right angle to take his photographs. He also experimented with coloring his photographs which was and still is a unique aspect within nineteenth century photography in Persia.