Corporal Punishment (Iran)

Photograph of embroidery workshop in Rasht, Iran, with man being bastinadoed. Dated c. 1880. Photograph of embroidery workshop in Rasht, Iran, with man being bastinadoed. Dated c. 1880. Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. E.339:29-2010.

A photograph by Antoin Sevruguin (1835-1933) shows corporal punishment being carried out in an embroidery workshop in Iran. The photograph was taken around 1880. 

The albumen print carries the caption 'Bastinado. Tailor's Workroom'. Secondary documentation tells that the photograph was taken in Rasht, northern Iran. Rasht was the centre of embroidered felt patchwork, rashti-duzi.

See also a tent panel from Rasht, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Sources:

  • BOHRER, Frederick N. (ed.; 1999), Sevruguin and the Persian Image. Photographs of Iran, 1870-1930. Washington DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
  • HARRIS, Russell and Isabel MILLER (2011), 'The Sevruguin photographs,' Asian Art (February 2011), pp. 6-7.
  • VENES, Melanie, and WEARDEN, Jennifer, 'A Persian venture,' Hali 148 (2006), pp. 60-61.

V&A online catalogue (retrieved 16 May 2016)

WV

Last modified on Thursday, 13 May 2021 17:27