This photo shows a pair of pottery workers, one sits on the ground kneading the raw clay, while the other uses a broad paddle to put the finishing touches on a tandoor oven. Today, we associate the tandoor with northern India and Pakistan, but this image comes from north of there, in Turkistan, part of the great Persian empire at the time this image was taken, around 1870. The image originally appeared in an illustrated book published in 1872.

The citation for this image from the National Archives does not include the photographer, but from contemporary images from the same area, we can guess that it may have been N V Bogaevskii (with an accent mark over the first i). This, however, is just speculation.

Whoever took the image was a talented photographer. It is well composed, with a door in the rough adobe-like walls of the building behind the main subjects breaking-up what would otherwise be a boring back-drop. There is also a raised platform, with three more tandoors on it, presumably drying before they are fired. The workmen, who are the main subjects, are absorbed in their work, completely ignoring the photographer.