The Power-ful Art of Qajar Photography: Orientalism and (Self)-Orientalizing in Nineteenth-Century Iran

Abstract

Paradoxical though it may seem, I would like to begin my discussion of Qajar photography with a little-known painting (pl. 1). The work of an anonymous mid-nineteenth-century artist, this image marks an aesthetic watershed. Here, an unknown artist is photographing Nasir al-Din Shah who is posing for a portrait. The image, of course, is meant to capture the power of Nasir al-Din Shah, a figure so grand he is simultaneously painted and photographed by court artists. As a “dynastic image,“ the painting focuses on the grandeur of the shah's power, symbolically represented by his opulent dress, royal pose, and attendant technology—he is the subject of the newest form of representation, i.e. photography. What is remarkable about this little-known, perhaps even aesthetically insignificant, image is the powerful way it speaks to the shift from painting to photography in mid-nineteenth-century Iran.

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