Gezicht op brug Band-e Qaisar over de rivier Karun, Shûshtar, Iran c. 1880 - 1910

Antoine Sevruguin made this photograph of the Band-e Qaisar bridge in Shushtar, Iran, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Sevruguin was one of the most successful commercial photographers in Iran at the time. This image presents an interesting collision of cultures. On the one hand, we have the Band-e Qaisar, a monumental bridge with ancient Roman roots, representing centuries of Iranian history. On the other hand, we have photography, a relatively new technology imported from Europe. Sevruguin, himself of mixed Russian, Georgian, and Armenian heritage, operated a studio in Tehran catering to European travelers eager to acquire images of Persia's exotic past. His commercial success was in part due to the institutional power of photography as a 'scientific' medium, and the orientalist desire to document what colonizers saw as a 'dying' culture. By exploring the cultural context of artworks like this, we can better understand the complex relationship between art, power, and representation. Historians rely on archives, travel accounts, and postcolonial theory to unpack the cultural significance of such photographs.