Package deal: three large-format books for a highly competitive price Japanese Dream: Well-traveled photographer and war correspondent Felice Beato (1832–1909) reached the Japanese port city of Yokohama in July 1863 and spent more than twenty years there. He captured unique portraits of geishas in splendid kimonos, samurai, sumo wrestlers, and scenes of everyday life or classic Japanese landscapes. Characteristic of Beato’s photographs—which in the early days were exposed on albumin plates—is their careful composition, occasionally recalling woodcuts by master artists Hiroshige or Hokusai. Grand Tour. A Photographic Journey Through Goethe's Italy: “Know’st thou the land where lemon trees do bloom, and oranges like gold in leafy gloom . . . .” From 1786 to 1788 yearning led Johann Wolfgang von Goethe south. Just seventy years later, the first photographers captured stations on the Grand Tour on gelatin silver plates. Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914), like Goethe from Frankfurt am Main, and Carlo Naya (1816–1882) produced intensely poetic views of St. Mark’s Square, the Colosseum, a smoking Vesuvius, and beautiful fisherwomen on Capri . This extra-large volume juxtaposes quotes from Goethe with the corresponding images. The Journeys of Casanova: Having lived in cities including Vienna , Paris , Rome , London , Berlin , St. Petersburg, and Madrid, Giacomo Casanova (1725–1796) could be described as the first cosmopolitan. The large-format illustrated volume follows in the footsteps of this well-known libertine and couples passages from his memoirs, remarkable in so many aspects, with magnificent early photographs and charming hand-colored book illustrations. Although it was not until nearly a century later that photography’s first pioneers roamed the alleys of Venice or attempted to capture the flair of Paris , these contemporary documents give an impression of the wonders that the great seducer encountered on his Grand Tour.
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