Albania Marubi Photos: History of a Nation 1858-1946

The World Bank Vice Presidency for Europe and Central Asia and the World Bank Art Program are honored to present for the first time from the Bank's permanent collection

Albania Marubi Photos:

History of a Nation 1858-1946

Marubi Photo Studio was created for Pietro Marubi, an Italian painter and sculptor who inmigrated to Albania around 1850.

Albanians called him Pjeter Marubi, the name he would keep on the country that became for him a second land.

At the beginning he would take pictures for pleasure, then according to the client’s request. The studio started to be well-known all over the country and then outside the country when his photos were published by prestigious magazines of Italy, France and England.

The volume of work made Marubi hire two assistants, Mati and Kel Kodheli.

When Pjeter was getting older and he was thinking about the future and perspective of his studio he decided to donate it to the capable photographer Kel Kodheli. Kel accepted the offer and he decided to change his last name from Kodheli into Marubi as a sign of gratitude to Marubi.

Kel Marubi would faithfully continue the path started by the founder, but he developed it further. The tradition went on the family and Geg Marubi (Kel’s son) becomes a photographer as well.

In 1946 Marubi Studio was closed down. The government changes the studio into a scientific archival center which continues to be used by historians, ethno graphs, architects, painters and especially by the film producers of documentary films.

View from Durres Port

Marubi Photo Studio in Shkodra is one of the most well known and the richest studio both in Albania and Balkan Peninsula for more than eighty years (1858-1938).

Shkodra is an old city situated on the Adriatic coast line, it is a powerful trade center built on its urban and architectonic style it was greatly developed in the middle of the 19^th century and it was a city with developed markets not only for its size but also for the variety of its handicrafts. There were distinguished artisans who dealt with the natural silk industry and with artistic silver production; they used these crafts to decorate the national costumes.

The Studio was very rich in photography of all sorts; there were pictures of popular costumes for men, women, children, city people and highlanders being photographed outside in nature or inside the studio, they are one of the most authentic sources with great irreplaceable values for the scholar of national culture and the history of social and cultural development of the period when they were realized.