On the dusty outskirts of Tbilisi in 1880, Aleksandre Roinashvili pulled his carriage to a stop and turned to his young wife. "From today you are no longer my wife, and I am no longer your husband," he told her.

After the shocked woman dismounted, Roinashvili continued east towards today's Azerbaijan, his carriage jingling with photography equipment.

After his unhappy marriage ended, Roinashvili never again attempted to build a family, instead the photographer devoted his energies to documenting the cultures and landscapes of the Caucasus, and his beloved homeland of Georgia.

Roinashvili was born in Dusheti, central Georgia, in 1846. After losing his father at a young age, the boy migrated to Tbilisi with no clear prospects.

Roinashvili was able to find his way in Tbilisi and learned the new craft of photography as an assistant to a Russian studio photographer.

Soon Roinashvili established his own business, becoming the first-ever professional photographer of Georgian origin.

Roinashvili's portrait studio was a success, but he soon yearned to use the new technology of photography to document the culture of his occupied homeland.

One hundred and fifty years on from the most productive era of his career, Georgia's National Parliamentary Library permitted RFE/RL to access several of Roinashvili's finest photographs from its archive.

The high-resolution photographs offer a fascinating, often surprising insight into the Caucasus under Russian rule.

Georgian historian Giorgi Javakhishvili told RFE/RL that Roinashvili was exceptional in part because of because of what he achieved amid a highly class-conscious society.

"Roinashvili, who had a peasant background, was able to achieve success with his own talents," Javakhishvili said.

The historian says there is relatively little information about Roinashvili’s life in the aftermath of his 1880 roadside separation from his wife, but it is known he photographed and wandered throughout Daghestan for several years.

One 19th-century Georgian press report states that Daghestan was a place that held a personal fascination for Roinashvili, who "searched the Caucasus Mountains for lost and forgotten artifacts and stories."

The photographer's Daghestan expedition was also likely to have been financially profitable.

Russian society was fascinated with Daghestan in the wake of the Kremlin's 1864 conquest of the territory after decades of bitter conflict with mountain tribes.

"In general, the Caucasus for Russia in the 19th century was a place of exoticism, beauty, and horror at the same time," Javakhishvili told RFE/RL.

At the time of Roinashvili's roaming through the region with his camera, "Russian society knew Caucasians only from literature and painting," Javakashvili said.

The Georgian photographer also traveled throughout today's Armenia and Azerbaijan.

During his roaming, Roinashvili began to collect various artifacts, and formed the idea of creating a national museum of Georgian culture.

"There is almost no nation within the Russian Empire that does not have its own house, or museum," Roinashvili wrote. "And we [Georgians] who have the advantage of past glory, art, and literacy, do not even think of establishing such a national house so that the future generation can see its past glory."

"I bought about 500 things from enemies of ours and brought them to our mother city with the intention to give them to our nation, to establish a Georgian national museum," Roinashvili wrote near the end of his life.

"It's been six years since I brought these items and, unfortunately for us, I have not been able to find any institution in our country that can store, even temporarily, these wonderful and rare items."

In May 1898, Aleksandre Roinashvili died unexpectedly, aged 52 . His will passed all of his possessions, including the cultural treasures he had acquired throughout his travels, to Georgia's Society for Georgian Literacy.

A contemporary wrote of the photographer: "He showed us Georgians an example of what one man is capable of if he is unafraid of circumstances.... Aleksandre Roinashvili made his name worthy of eternal memory in his country."