Gabriel Lekegian was an Armenian photographer and painter. He was born between 1855–60, and his presence in Istanbul is documented in 1882. In 1885 he exhibited a watercolour ‹Turkish Zingaras› at the Royal Academy of London (under the name of ‹Gabriel Lekegian›; Lassalle, 1885, p. 96, n° 1364). Between 1887 and 1892, Lekegian set up as a photographer in the Azbakiyya district of Cairo. The existence of his studio is attested until 1925 (Cazentre, 2013, p. 235; Jacobson, 2007, pp. 250–251).
Lekegian left an important corpus of works, with thousands of images documenting the region at the end of the 19th century. He also published books, for example Max Herz’s Catalogue sommaire des monuments exposés dans le Musée national de l’art arabe, 1895 (G. Lekegian & Cie).

Cazentre, T. (2013). Photographes du Caire dans le dernier tiers du XIXe siècle. Les ateliers commerciaux. In M. Volait (Ed.), Le Caire dessiné et photographié au XIXe siècle (pp. 227–244). Picard.

Jacobson, K. (2007). Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839–1925. Quaritch.

Lassalle, H. (ed.)(1885). The Royal Academy Illustrated. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.