On recto of the print, a handwritten number in white ink, probably by Antoin Sevruguin reads, "157". The same number in the same position appears on the print of the Myron Bement Smith Collection of Antoin Sevruguin Photographs located in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
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 print of this image is also in the Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973-1985. Reference number: FSA A.4 2.12.Up.22
Another photograph of this woman wearing the same clothing appears on Page 100 of "Sevruguin's Iran" published by Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn & Co's Uitgeversmaatschappij in Rotterdam and Zaman Publishers in Tehran. The woman is described as a Chaldese woman or Christain woman in the photograph in question. However, she is also described as a Kurd from Kermanshah in a photograph in the Hotz collection of the University of Leiden.