BOOK REVIEW: A CAREER OF JAPAN: BARON RAIMUND VON STILLFRIED AND EARLY YOKOHAMA PHOTOGRAPHY – TAASA Review September 2016

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This article was originally found in the September 2016 edition of TAASA Review (Volume 25, Issue 3, Page 23).

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Gael Newton A Career of Japan: Baron Raimund von Stillfried and Early Yokohama Photography Luke Gartlan Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016 RRP 103, hardback, 384 pages, 163 illus. One of the former military men who took up photography in mid 19th century Asia in the hope of returning enriched to their homeland was Austro-Hungarian Baron Raimund von Stillfried (1839­1911).

Initially a soldier, diplomat, merchant and entrepreneur in South America, China and Mexico from 1863 to 1867, Stillfried began a new vocation as a commercial photographer in Yokohama from 1871 to 1881, then in Singapore and Bangkok until 1883. On his return to Vienna Stillfried married well and established his profile as a successful expatriate travel photographer by holding a museum retrospective.

He did resume some professional photography but was mostly occupied with topographical painting and restoration in his later years...