ABSTRACT
Two catalogue sheets of photographs with named women provide a point of inquiry for this chapter, indexing a larger cultural and commercial phenomenon in Qajar Iran (1785-1925) (Figures 4.1-4.2).1 These sheets look similar to uncut cartes-de-visite and catalogue sheets that show images of famous male politicians and royal family members (Figure 4.3). The catalogue sheets of photographs of women seem more disparate in nature-photocollages are combined with several photographs, including clothed, half-clothed, and nude women. At the bottom of the first set of images, the names of the women appear to be written on labels (which were photographed afterward). On the other sheet, which was cut, the (re-photographed) names were written on various parts of the photographs without the labels (meaning the reproductions themselves do not have the actual writing on them). In Donna Stein’s “Three Photographic Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Iran” (1989), she suggests that these are photographs of Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar’s concubines.2 Taken at face value, this statement may have been a plausible claim considering his own desires to re-present his harem, but then I found the same photographs-solo prints, cut-out images, and catalogue sheets-in various collections around the world: Boston, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York City, and Tehran.3 They surfaced as stand-alone cards and loose photographs in private albums that did not belong to the shah, placed next to other erotica that also portrayed Iranian women (sometimes mixed with European erotic photographs). Who were these women, and why were there several reproductions of their images created and distributed? Although some collected photographs of women may have been part of the shah’s own oeuvre at one point, many of these women were famous singers, musicians, and prostitutes in Qajar Iran.
