Photographs

Middle Eastern Special Collections

Contemporary Iran and Modernisation Through the Lens of an Album

Among the treasures in the Special Collections sits a remarkable photo album, Or. 25.777, purchased in 2000 from McBlain Books in the USA. Its twenty-five photographs document the inauguration of a hospital in 1955 in Shiraz, showing Iran’s 1950s modernization.

Guest author • 21-05-2026

Photography

A Photo Album of Julius Muller - Suriname 1883-1885

Julius Eduard Muller (1846-1902), an esteemed and influential politician in Suriname, was also an amateur photographer. His view of the colony lives on in a photo album created for a friend and business partner.

Anouk Mansfeld • 16-05-2023

Photography

Emmy Andriesse: forbidden photographs of the hunger winter and liberation of Holland, 1944-1945

Emmy Andriesse photographed the last years of World War II in Amsterdam while putting herself in serious danger. Her photographs, now in the Leiden Special Collections, gained iconic status in Dutch visual history.

Maartje van den Heuvel • 01-05-2020

Exhibitions · Photography

Urban Jungle: Megacities in Asia

The world's largest cities and acclaimed photographer Martin Roemers

Maartje van den Heuvel + 1 other • 02-10-2017

Manuscripts, Archives and Letters · Photography

Mementoes of Hans Christian Andersen

In 1866 Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) sent a photograph of himself to the writer Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint (1812–1886). On the back he wrote: ‘a memento of H.C. Andersen’.

Mart van Duijn • 07-11-2014

Blogs

Contemporary Iran and Modernisation Through the Lens of an Album

A Photo Album of Julius Muller - Suriname 1883-1885

Emmy Andriesse: forbidden photographs of the hunger winter and liberation of Holland, 1944-1945

Urban Jungle: Megacities in Asia

Mementoes of Hans Christian Andersen