Thousands of Qajar Photos Released Online for the First Time

The download link for thousands of pieces from the Golestan Palace photo album was a hot topic widely shared on social media in the first week of June; over three thousand photos from the Qajar era in 76 folders from the albums available in Golestan Palace. The publisher remains anonymous, but in their message accompanying the download link, they condemned those who 'imprison' important historical documents, stating that these photos are published for enthusiasts of Iranian art and culture, with the only condition for use being to send the albums to a few others. The Golestan Palace photo album is a treasure trove of photographs from the reign of the Qajar kings, along with albums donated to them, with a history of compilation dating back to around 1266 in the Islamic calendar, nearly 180 years ago. The rich collection of the Golestan Palace photo album includes many photos of travels, ceremonies, rituals, and individuals, including women, especially the wives of the king. Previously, the management of this palace announced that the photo album contains 1,520 albums and about 9,000 glass plates, making it one of the most important repositories in the world and 'the second repository of photos and films after the British Museum.' The 76 albums recently uploaded online have no specific order; the first is album number 100 and the last is album number 1429, and it is unclear whether the publisher had access to the rest of them or only selected these albums for publication. According to Hamidreza Hosseini, a history researcher, access to these photos was previously difficult and limited, as 'it seemed efforts were made to keep them as inaccessible to the public as possible.' Meanwhile, the public release of digital versions of archival photos is a common practice among many libraries, museums, universities, and research centers worldwide; a topic that, according to Mr. Hosseini, 'has also been done to some extent by some archival centers in Iran.' The management of Golestan Palace, which has never explained why it has refrained from publishing the photos from the photo album online all these years, issued a statement on June 7, implicitly confirming that the publication of the albums occurred without their oversight. The public relations department of the Golestan Palace World Heritage site also announced that what has been published is known as 'shadow albums.' Shadow albums are actually scanned albums from the original versions prepared to serve researchers and academics. The Golestan Palace management's statement mentioned that they have decided to publicly release 'shadow albums' and 'the process of categorizing the photos and renaming the folders is underway.' However, the palace officials did not explain why they did not announce this decision before the publication of some albums by an anonymous source. The story does not end here. Based on a comparison made by Hamidreza Hosseini, the examination of the scanned photos shows how poor the quality of what was made available to visitors was. Mr. Hosseini, to clarify the service method of Golestan Palace to students and researchers, also compared several pieces from the original albums with the shadow albums. He had previously emphasized that the photos were scanned at low quality and 'in some cases, the captions were not visible due to lighting and improper scanner settings (or perhaps a photocopy machine!), or the edges of the photos were not scanned.' The geographical range of the photos includes a large part of cities and regions in Iran and some places outside Iran (such as Tbilisi, Paris, and Iraq); from natural landscapes and urban and rural views to historical buildings and sites, Qajar-era buildings, and their construction stages. Portraits or group photos of the king, princes, harem women, courtiers, statesmen, clerics, ordinary people, and foreigners residing in Iran are other subjects of these photos. Many photos also depict domestic and foreign travels, royal camps and hunts, court parties, governmental events and ceremonies, construction operations, national and religious rituals, professions, Iranian ethnicities, and other topics. The management of Golestan Palace stated in its announcement that the digital publication of documents and images in museums worldwide has flourished in recent years, and this issue, in addition to increasing the value and credibility of a museum among audiences, also leads to an increase in its visitors. It remains to be seen whether this recent event will finally prompt the management of Golestan Palace to begin the process of online publication of the photo albums or not, and whether they will take action for professional, accurate, and faithful scanning of the photos, or if researchers and enthusiasts will have to settle for the existing low quality.