TEHRAN -- A collection of photos depicting a number of Qajar era professions will be showcased at an exhibition in downtown Tehran next week.

The collection comprises 37 pictures, which have been selected from the archive of the Golestan Palace, a Qajar era monument that will be playing host to the show from July 6 to 21.
“This exhibit will be very important for those who are interested in the study of Qajar history in the social and economic fields,” Golestan Palace curator Masud Sarifi said in a press release on Sunday
The photos have been taken by Aqa Reza Akkasbashi, Abdollah Qajar, Mohammad-Hassan Qajar and Mir Seyyed Ali, all of them are among the renowned Qajar era photographers.
The collection also includes photos by Antoin Sevruguin (late 1830s–1933), a photographer in Iran during the Qajar era.
Sevruguin was born into a mixed Armenian-Georgian family in the Russian embassy of Tehran. Antoin was one of the many children of Vassil de Sevruguin and a Georgian Achin Khanoum. Vassil de Sevruguin was a diplomat to Tehran.
A photograph album, which had been presented to Qajar king Nasser ad-Din Shah (1831–1896) in 1850 CE by Malek-Qasem Mirza, a Qajar prince who was one of the many sons of Qajar king Fat’hali Shah, will be put on display at the showcase.
The album was empty when it was presented. However, some photos of Nasser ad-Din Shah’s wives were put in it later.
Malek-Qasem Mirza was the first Iranian who took a photo in Iran. Before or at the same time, Jules Richard, a French teacher for an Iranian family, snapped a picture with a daguerreotype camera.
The advent of photographic art occurred in Iran about five years after its invention in 1839 during the last years of Qajar king Mohammad Shah’s reign.
Afterwards, Nasser ad-Din Shah showed great interest in photography and sent several groups of talented students from Dar-ul-Fonun, the Iranian polytechnic institute established in 1851, to European academies to learn the art.
Photo: A barber dyes Nasser ad-Din Shah’s mustache in a photo by Antoin Sevruguin in 1890.