ROYAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN IRAN: Constructions of Masculinity, Representations of Power

This essay considers examples of Qajar portrait photography to highlight aesthetic concerns and to elaborate its sociopolitical implications in the context of nineteenth-century Iran. Portrait photography in Qajar Iran was not merely a means of self-expression or an inscription of monarchical and patriarchal order, but it was a powerful tool that enabled and perpetuated patriarchal and monarchical relations of power. Put otherwise, the meaning or significance of the portrait does not solely reside in the image itself but in the uses to which it is put.