Photograph: Mogilev citizen Gershen Faktor.

European Jews

Mogilev Guberniya, city Mogilev

1866

Museum of the Peoples of the USSR

Salt paper print

14,4 x 11; 17,8 x 14,5

РЭМ 8764-21566

The photograph was received from P. P. Muromtsev, Fellow, Society of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography. On the reverse side is the inscription “Portrait of Mogilev citizen Gershen Faktor in Shendar’s hotel made during prayer.” The man dressed in a long coat over a white shirt has a large “talith” praying shawl on his head and shoulders. On his forehead and left arm are “tefillins” (protective amulets), elements of a Jew’s praying attire. The arm-tefillin is wound around the left arm seven times. The photograph was displayed at the Russian Ethnographic Exhibition of 1867 in Moscow.