Publisher's Synopsis
The Holy Land has captures the attention of mankind since the very beginning of human civilization, and even more so from the early days of Christianity. Nineteenth-century Palestine fired the imagination of the Western world. Improved travel facilities and greater political stability in the Near Easst brought ever-increasing numbers of visitors to the Holy Land, affecting the quantity and quality of the pictorial depictions of its sites and scenes. Like other countries in the exotic Muslim East, Palestine also became a point of focal interest for painters of the Orientalist school. The author has assembled a fascinating collection of unique works of art, executed in the diverse styles of nineteenth-century painting. Around these reproductions, many of them in colour, he reconstructs the story of the artists who produced them, who came from many European countries and from North America. The result is an important and unique perspective on the sites, persons, events and customs of the Holy Land in that century.
