Persia | Album of photographs, c. 1920s

Persia

Album of photographs, [c. 1920s]

Oblong folio (275 x 390mm.) containing 270 photographs of various dimensions on 28 card mounts (including 269 silver print photographs and earlier albumen photograph of a Persian woman on the first card mount), some images with white manuscript captions, black cloth covers, held together with metal screw system ("Reedsdale" brand album), a few photographs faded, slightly creased, or coming loose from mounts

The album includes images of the staff, buildings, and grounds of the British Legation, then of an event attended by Persian and British VIPs, eighteen images of the Ashura festival (with devout Shia men self-flagellating and head-cutting (tatbir)), views of visits to petroglyphs, rural, village, and mountain views, views of an expedition to the Persian mountains, Mount Damavand, Afcheh, Lar, Isphahan, etc.

Two of the photographs feature Sir Percy Zachariah Cox (1864-1937), one of the leading figures in the Middle East/ Arabian Peninsula at the start of the twentieth century, seemingly during his time in Tehran as Acting British Minister/ Agent (1919-1921). During this time, Cox was involved in concluding the Anglo-Iranian Agreement, negotiating the drilling rights of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (an agreement later denounced by the Iranian Majlis in 1921).