Handwritten number in white ink, probably by Antoin Sevruguin reads "257". The number "62" in white ink is also on recto but has been scratched out. These numbers are in the same location on the print of this image in the Myron Bement Smith collection of Antoin Sevruguin photographs located in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. This is also the case for the other gelatin silver print of this image in the Nelson collection.
Provenance
This photograph forms part of a group that is believed to have belonged to Earl Thomas Crain (1907-1989), an American foreign service officer who was stationed in Iran from 1935. The group of photographs are believed to have been originally acquired by the father of Crain’s wife, Elizabeth Agnes Hildebrand, who was an honorary council for Switzerland in Iran after the first world war.
Publications
A glass negative of this image is in the Myron Bement Smith collection of Antoin Sevruguin photographs located in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. The glass negative was a gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973-1985 and has the reference number: FSA A.4 2.12.GN.57.08.