An Armenian archbishop

A carte-de-visite portrait of an Armenian clergyman.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads: ‘Mgr. Georges Nurmuz, archivêque arménien, supérieur du couvent de Venise’ [English: ‘Monsignor George Nurmuz, Armenian archbishop, superior of the Venice monastery’].

San Lazzaro degli Armeni [English: Saint Lazarus of the Armenians, called St Lazarus Island in some English sources] is a small island in the Venetian Lagoon. Since 1717 it has been home to the monastery of the Mekhitarists, a congregation of Benedictine monks of the Armenian Catholic Church. It is their primary centre, while the Mekhitarist Monastery in Vienna is their primary abbey. The monks are best known for their scholarly publications of ancient Armenian versions of otherwise lost ancient Greek texts and for their research on the Armenian language, both classical and modern.

A small slip of paper with a hand-written inscription in Armenian has been pasted to the reverse of the mount.

Photographer and location unidentified.