We do not have any biographical data on Leon studio’s proprietor. In her article about Yerevan’s early photographers, the art historian Ani Mejlumyan reports that ‘Leon’ operatedseasonally and the photographer came to Yerevan from Tiflis. (1) However, we could not locate another studio with the same name in Tiflis. The opinion expressed in the same article claiming that Leon ‘was one of the oldest photography establishments in Eastern Armenia’ does not correspond to reality as the photographs made by this studio relate exclusively to the 1900s-1910s.

Amidst the studio’s portraits there are many which are of considerable ethnographic and historiographical interest. His customers included not only Armenian, Russian and European residents of Yerevan, but also members of the local Persian and Azerbaijani communities. As the photographer's seal proclaims, customers could order their photos in ‘natural’ (human) scale, which indicates that the studio was technically well-equipped.

1) Ani Mejlumyan, 'The Art of Photography in Yerevan (end of 19th century to second half of the 20th century)' [in Armenian], 15/08/2017, http://yhm.am/archives/9031

Vigen Galstyan, 2018