We don’t have many details about the photographer’s background. It is known that Matsoyan's studio was based in the city of Ardvin at the end of the 19th century and was operational until, perhaps the massacres of the Armenian population in 1914. This mountainous city, located not far from the Black Sea and the Georgian border, became a part of the Russian Empire from 1878, and the vast majority of the population consisted of Armenian migrants from Van. Matsoyan's business was perhaps the first, permanent photographic establishment in Ardvin. The small number of surviving photographs bearing Matsoyan’s stamps are of great historiographical and ethnographic interest for the studies of Eastern-Armenian culture and life at the dawn of the 20^thcentury. They complement and are sometimes comparable to the famous colour portraits of Ardvin locals made by the Russian travelling photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorski.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016