کاخ گلستان (آلبوم خانه): فهرست عکس‌های برگزیده عصر قاجار فارسی 1404

The book Golestan Palace, which contains a selection of Qajar-era photographs from the Albumkhaneh (Photo Archive) of Golestan Palace, was published in 2003 (1382 SH) by the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, following research and writing by Mohammad-Hassan Samsar and Fatemeh Sarayan.

The Albumkhaneh is part of the Golestan Palace cultural complex in Tehran, which includes gardens, palaces, museums, a library, and buildings dating from the Zand period to the Qajar era. This world-renowned cultural complex, with its rich architectural and artistic heritage, has the potential to be one of the most attractive centers for both international and domestic tourism.
The present book is an effort to introduce a portion of the highly valuable visual historical documents preserved in this exceptional collection, with the hope that it may serve as a starting point for broader and more comprehensive efforts in the future.

Pages 21 to 118 of the book consist of alphabetically arranged tables listing the photographs. These tables include detailed information such as the photograph number, subject, photographer, date, dimensions, album number, image reference, and identification numbers recorded in two columns abbreviated as Sh.Sh and Sh.N. In this way, the book provides a highly valuable reference source for researchers and readers.

In the opening pages, the director of Golestan Palace, in the publisher’s preface, offers explanations about the historical significance of the work. One passage reads:

“... Beyond his role in promoting and popularizing photography, the great contribution of Naser al-Din Shah, whose impact continues to be discussed, studied, and utilized today, lies in the establishment of a vast visual archive now known as the Albumkhaneh of Golestan Palace.
This archive—most of which was assembled through Naser al-Din Shah’s personal interest in and encouragement of photography during his own reign—may not be the largest center of historical visual documentation in the world, but it is undoubtedly among the richest.
Until now, insufficient effort has been made to properly identify and introduce this unique Iranian historical archive, which includes not only visual records from the 13th and 14th centuries AH, but also images of Persepolis, Susa, Ctesiphon, Bisotun, and other sites whose origins go back thousands of years.
Alongside its other cultural activities, Golestan Palace has therefore resolved to properly present this historical archive. Important steps have already been taken in the past, including an experimental project titled Preliminary Plan for the Organization of the Golestan Palace Albums.
The results of this project include the comprehensive identification of 2,100 photographs selected from nearly 40,000 photographs and black-and-white and color prints contained in 1,040 albums of the Albumkhaneh. These have been documented in the form of 2,100 photo records, 3,222 information cards, and 56 reference albums, all of which are now accessible to researchers.
In order to make the results of this work available to the public and to allow specialists to evaluate the methodology, Golestan Palace decided to publish the outcomes of this preliminary project in the present book...”

It should also be noted that photography and slide preparation for the book were carried out by Davoud Sadegh-Saba, and that approximately 100 pages of the volume are devoted separately and in detail to extended captions and annotations of the photographs.