According to scholars and historians, the first photographer in Iran was Jules Richard, a Frenchman who, as stated in his diaries, arrived in Tehran in 1844. He served as the French language tutor of the Gulsaz family and took daguerreotypes of Mohammad Shah (reigned 1834–48) and his son, the crown prince, Nasir al-Din Mirza.

The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal dynasty of Turkic origin,specifically from the Qajar tribe, ruling over Iran from 1789 to 1925.The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf ‘Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus