In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs »

The Holy Land is unrivalled as a region combining breathtaking beauty with historical and religious significance. Its position as the birthplace of the three major Abrahamic faiths—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—gives it a special place in the hearts of millions. Rarely does a book come along that captures this extraordinary land in a fresh light. In the Footsteps of Abraham does just that, presenting a unique opportunity to experience the Holy Land as it was at the turn of the last century, before the region underwent the radical changes of modernization.

These vivid images evoke the Holy Land of centuries ago, as Moses or Jesus might have seen it. The photos were taken before the advent of color photography by the Matson Photo Agency, part of Jerusalem's American Colony, a community of Christian expatriates. In the 1920s, Ari Speelman, a devout Dutch Christian, commissioned the hand-coloring of 1200 photos on glass plates, a massive undertaking that sometimes involved painting with a single human hair. In this era before mass tourism, he traveled through Holland giving popular lantern slide lectures. His remarkable collection was bequeathed to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam; the photos in this book were selected from that legacy.

The New York Times - Steven Heller

Each image takes up a full page. Most are incredibly sharp, some are painterly, and many are so finely detailed—colored with single-hair brushes, even—that they're hard to distinguish from actual color photographs…Although not intended as sociological studies, the photographs do offer a vivid record of change. But most extraordinary is the way some seem to reveal a land where nothing ever changes.

Foreword Joel J. Cahen Cahen, Joel J.

Introduction Helen Speelman on Arie Speelman

The Matson Collection: A Half Century of Photography in the Middle East George Hobart Hobart, George

The American Colony: A Family, a Colony, a Life of Good Works in the Holy City Jonathan Broder Broder, Jonathan

The Photographs

1 Jaffa and the Coast 24

2 Jerusalem 46

3 Village Life 110

4 Bethlehem 188

5 The Bedouin 224

6 The Jordan River, the Ghar, and the Dead Sea 260

7 The North: Galilee, Nazareth, Safed, Mt. Tabor, Mt. Hermon 290

8 The Lebanon 350