Lot 4037: Ermakov, Dimitri N.: Portraits of inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire

Attractive portrait album showing a wide range of people of Georgia and the Ottoman Empire. 1870s/1880s. 76 carte-de-visite and cabinet albumen prints, most with number in the negative, some with photographer's blindstamp in lower right corner, each mounted to studio board, some with photographers' names below the image on the mount and logo, as well as some annotated in ink on mount verso, each inserted in album window mat boards (a few with tears), bound in contemporary half calf album (spine partially loose) with oak boards, front cover with carved relief of two bears and with wide metal clasp. Dimitri Ermakov was active as a professional photographer as of 1868 and he travelled to various regions of Georgia, regions of the Caucasus, Persia, Turkey and central Asia. As the signet on some of the photo mounts indicates, Ermakov later shared a studio with the artisitic photographer Koltschin in Tiflis. Ermakov is the most important documentartist of Georgian life of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. A small part of Ermakov's negatives are in the collection of the Georgian State Museum of Fine Arts.
This album contains a rare collection of portraits which show men and women in traditional dress, with families, couples, some with weapons, musical instruments, at work as well as Persian Mullahs, Turkmenian warriors, street sellers, a sharpshooter with his rifle, etc. - Some photos faded, a few with light scuff marks, otherwise most in good to very good condition.