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Album fotografico della Persia
2012.R.18
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Title: Album fotografico della Persia
Date (inclusive): 1860
Number: 2012.R.18
Creator/Collector:
Pesce, Luigi,
1827-1864
Physical Description:
2 Linear Feet
(2 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The album of photographs taken by Luigi
Pesce contains 21 views of Tehran and environs, followed by 21 views of ancient Persian
sites including the Achaemenid ruins of Persepolis, the Achaemenid tombs and Sasanian
reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam near Persepolis, and the Sasanian reliefs at Tāq-e Bostān. Pesce
took the earliest documented photographs of Persepolis and some of the earliest photographs
of Tehran.
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Language: Collection material is in Italian
Luigi Pesce (1827-1864) a Neapolitan lieutenant colonel and amateur photographer, was
employed by Nasir al-Din Shah, beginning in 1848, to modernize the Persian army, and
eventually became commander-in-chief of its infantry. Pesce took the earliest documented
photographs of Persepolis (and some of the earliest photographs of Tehran), for which he was
awarded an Honorable Mention at the 1862 International Exhibition in London.
Photography was introduced into Persia (modern Iran) in 1844 by the Frenchman Jules
Richard, whom the Shah had charged with the task of recording the ancient Achaemenid site of
Persepolis. When Richard failed to carry out the task, Pesce took the initiative, and, as he
recorded in the album that he presented to the Shah in 1858 (now in the Golestan Palace
collection, Tehran), "There has yet been no one from the West who has captured the images of
the ruins by photography. Therefore, it is for the first time that your servant took
photographs of the reliefs and ruined edifices of Takht-e-Jamshid and presented them to His
Majesty."
Luigi Pesce also presented an album of his photographs to Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson
(1810-1895) at the conclusion of Rawlinson's brief tenure as British ambassador to the Qajar
court (1859-1860). Rawlinson was a British East India Company army officer, diplomat,
Orientalist, and philologist who has been called the "father of Assyriology." He was posted
first in India and then to the Persian court, beginning in 1835. There he transcribed and
translated the trilingual cuneiform texts that Darius the Great caused to be inscribed on
the rock of Behistun at Tāq-e Bostān. Rawlinson's "Memoir on the Babylonian and Assyrian
Inscriptions," published in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Great Britain and Ireland
, volume 14 (1851), which comprises a copy of the
Babylonian inscriptions at Behistun in the original characters along with an interlined
transliteration and a Latin translation, is considered to be his most significant
contribution to the field of Assyriology.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Luigi Pesce Album fotografico della Persia, 1860, The Getty Research Institute, Los
Angeles, Accession no. 2012.R.18.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2012r18
Acquired in 2012. Rawlinson portrait gift of Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar in 2014.
The collection was cataloged by Beth Ann Guynn in 2012. Additional material integrated in
2016.
The collection was digitized by the repository and the images can be viewed online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2012r18
Scope and Content of Collection
The album of salted paper and albumen photographic prints contains 21 views of Tehran and
environs, followed by 21 views of ancient Persian sites, all of which Pesce made for his
employer, Nasir al-Din Shah. Although Pesce first presented his photographs to the Shah, in
this album he has "repurposed" a set of prints as a personal gift to Sir Henry Rawlinson.
Just as the monuments, edifices, and subjects of the bas-reliefs Pesce depicted for the Shah
can be seen to relate to the Qajar court, so can specific images included in the present
album be seen to allude to Rawlinson's own achievments. Thus, the inclusion of a cuneiform
inscription acknowledges Rawlinson's scholarly interests and contributions, while
bas-reliefs of soldiers and of Darius's army flanking the great staircase at Persepolis can
be seen as allusions to his vital military role in Persia, including his mustering and
training of the Guran, a Kurdish mountain tribe.
The views of Tehran and environs include historic monuments such as the Mogul mausoleum of
Ilkahan Uljāytū Khudābandah, known as the Dome of Soltaniyeh; views of the city's gates; and
Qajar buildings such as Golestan Palace and the military school, headquarters, and
residence. Many of these structures have either been radically altered or no longer exist,
such as the three city gates documented in the album. Several views of the Golestan Palace
record buildings and architectural and decorative details that were destroyed or modified in
the course of subsequent restorations. Other photographs, such as the view of the military
school, appear to be the only visual documentations of Qajar buildings that are no longer
extant.
Ancient Persian sites depicted in the album include the Achaemenid ruins of Persepolis, the
Achaemenid tombs and Sasanian reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam near Persepolis, and the Sasanian
reliefs at Tāq-e Bostān in Kirmānshāhān province. These photographs are not only the
earliest photographs of these sites, but the specific subjects of the reliefs chosen for
inclusion can be seen as illustrating the symbolic relationship between the mid-ninteenth
century Qajar court and the ancient Persian Empire.
Included with the album is a brief handwritten note regarding H. C. Rawlinson written on
the letterhead of the Commander-in-Chief in India and signed: Cin in C India 1921 (i.e.
General Henry Seymour Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson, and son of H. C. Rawlinson).
The album is quarter-bound in leather with floral Qajar-style lacquer covers. The front and
back paste-downs, also in the Qajar style, have central cartouches depicting a bird among
flowers.
The free front endpaper contains a handwritten title: Album Fotografico / della / Persia /
Compilato dal Sig.r Luigi Pesce, Tenente Colonnello / Instruttore d'Infanteria al servizio
dello Shah / Teheran.
The dedication on the flyleaf reads: A Sua Eccellenza / Il Signor Generale Enrico Rawlinson
/ Ministro Plenipotenziario di Sua Maestà la Regina / d'Inghilterra / et. et. et. / presso /
La corte dello Shah di Persia / Teheran 12 Maggio 1860 / In omaggio.
Captions are handwritten on the mounts in Italian. The photographs are signed in the
negative: L. Pesce.
Also included in the collection is a lithograph portrait of Rawlinson by an unidentified
artist.
Arranged in a single series:
Album fotografico della Persia, 1860.
Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke, Sir
(Portraits)
Kākh-i Gulistān (Tehran,
Iran)
Sculpture, Achaemenid -- Iran -- Persepolis
Relief (Sculpture), Ancient -- Iran -- Persepolis
Achaemenian inscriptions
Relief (Sculpture), Ancient -- Iran -- Naqsh-i Rustam
Cuneiform inscriptions
Art, Sassanid
Iran -- Antiquities
Tāq-e Bostān site (Iran) -- Antiquities
Bisutun Site (Iran) -- Antiquities
Sulāţniāyah (Zanjān, Iran)
Tehran (Iran) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Naqsh-i Rustam (Iran)
Persepolis (Iran) -- Antiquities
Salted paper prints -- Iran -- 19th century
Albumen prints -- Iran -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- Iran -- 19th century
Photographs, Original
Pesce, Luigi,
1827-1864