A Singer sewing machine seller, Sivrihisar, 1899

The photograph was taken in 1899 in the Ottoman Empire, in the town of Sivrihisar near Angora (Ankara). It shows Stepan Tingilian, a seller of Singer sewing machines, with his customer. At that time sewing machines were beginning to spread widely.

Tingilian himself ordered the photograph as a keepsake. On the back he wrote words of greeting to his friend Tigran Efendi Tobatian, congratulating him on the New Year and wishing him happiness on the threshold of the 20th century.

In the picture two men sit at a treadle sewing machine table: one in a fez and a suit, the other in a turban and a long striped robe.