The scant biographical details about Yelizaveta Musheghyan have come to us only through her studio seals. She was one of the few women in the Caucasus who managed a photographic business under her own name. ‘Ye. G. Musheghyan’s’ establishment was founded sometime in the 1890s in Alexandrapol (Gyumri) and relocated to Tiflis in the next decade. The precise connection between Ye. Musheghyan and the Musheghyants studios operating during the same period in Kars and Alexandrapol, is unknown to us. Based on a chronological analysis of her photographs, we can assume that Musheghyan’s pavilion in Alexandrapol ended its activities after Musheghyan's relocation to Tiflis. 

Yelizaveta’s studio portraiture was quite conventional for its time, limited as it was to orthodox family portraits and occasionally, more extravagant sittings in the ‘Belle Epoque’ style. The photographer’s seals offer interesting claims about the studio’s achievements. According to them, Musheghyan received awards from the Russian Prince Michael Nikolayevich as well as ‘a great silver medal for magnificent photographic images’. Prince Nikolaevich's praise was most likely associated with the hundreds of portraits that Musheghyan made of the Russian soldiers stationed at Alexandrapole’s Imperial military base. The photographer also had numerous sittings with Armenian intellectuals, of which her portrait of actress Siranuysh is particularly memorable. 

Vigen Galstyan, 2016