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License Agreement on scientific materials use.
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Images of Persia in the “Kämpfer Album”
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Daria Olegovna Martynova
Saint-Petersburg State University; State Institute for Art Studies, St. Petersburg
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Submitted:
May 19, 2026
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Abstract.
The aim of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of the representation of ethnographic types and landscapes of Safavid Persia through the prism of Orientalism in Engelbert Kämpfer’s “Album”. The focus is on the album compiled in 1684-1685 by the German traveler Engelbert Kämpfer (1651-1716) with the assistance of the little-known Persian artist Jani, who worked in the “Western style” of Persian miniature painting. During the study, it was established that the German traveler Kämpfer did not simply copy or use the sheets by the Persian miniaturist as an iconographic source; he commissioned the local master to create them specifically. The captions in Persian and explanations in Latin on these sheets served to confirm Kämpfer’s familiarity with the region and the depicted subjects. An examination of the sheets from Kämpfer’s “Album” reveals that the Persian artist’s attempts to adapt European artistic techniques indicate an understanding of cultural differences and Kämpfer’s desire to present this album to the public from a specific cultural perspective. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the description of previously unstudied sheets of the album, the establishment of their significance in Persian culture, the identification of iconographic sources, and the deciphering of the meaning of the images presented on the sheets. This allows not only for filling a knowledge gap regarding this source but also for laying the foundation for its deeper culturological and artistic interpretation, which defines the practical significance of the presented material.
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Key words and phrases:
ориентализм в искусстве
рецептивный механизм в искусстве
персидско-европейские художественные связи
образы Персии в искусстве
Энгельберт Кемпфер
Джани
Orientalism in art
receptive mechanism in art
Persian-European artistic connections
images of Persia in art
Engelbert Kämpfer
Jani
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