IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ABRAHAM: The Holy Land in Different Hues

Robert Leiter of the Jewish Exponent takes a look at In the Footsteps of Abraham, by Richard Hardiman and Helen Speelman, recently published by Overlook: "At the turn of the last century, travel to what was then called the Holy Land began to become a distinct growth industry (as promotional types like to put it these days). This was the period, of course, when Mark Twain was one of many Innocents Abroad, and his descriptions of the terrain and the people he saw there have been quoted ad infinitum ever since. The significant swell in visitors -- and at least one of its consequences -- is what Richard Hardiman and Helen Speelman's In the Footsteps of Abraham, a thick, well-produced coffee-table book published by the Overlook Press, takes as its starting point.

To satisfy a need among the upscale individuals flooding the region, photos displaying its natural beauty were taken in great quantity -- the most popular being those locales with a connection to the Bible. The major producer of such images was the Matson Photo Agency, made up of members of the American Colony, a group, we're told, of Christian expatriates. All of the scenes reproduced in the book are hand-tinted versions of a collection of glass lantern slides, which now reside at the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam. According to Joël J. Cahen of the museum, it is one of the "few fully hand-colored sets in existence, and certainly one of the largest." Helen Speelman's grandfather, Arie Speelman, a devout Christian, commissioned the hand coloring of 1,200 photos on glass plates, a labor-intensive undertaking. The elder Speelman then traveled around Holland using his extensive collection plates to give lantern slide lectures about these foreign and still exotic locales.

What is most wonderful about the images reproduced in the book is that, for those who have been to Israel often, the sites captured have both an exactitude -- in terms of attention to detail (even in the broad landscapes) -- while the soft pastel colors that appear to have been so effortlessly superimposed add a dreamy haze to the unmistakable reality. It's just the right touch -- the perfect nostalgic overlay that makes you long to get back to Israel as soon as possible."

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ABRAHAM in America Magazine

America Magazine reviews In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs, by Richard Hardiman an Helen Speelman in the December 16 issue: "If you are looking for a deluxe item for Christmas gift-giving, look no further. A spectacular and captivating book, this volume contains 180 hand-colored photographs (from a collection of 1,200) of the Holy Land, taken by the Matson Photo Agency, a part of Jerusalem’s American Colony, at the turn of the last century before color photography came to be. The history and international displays of these photos (originally glass plates), and the painstaking process of adding color, are as fascinating as the world and people they so strikingly depict. Richard Hardiman teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Helen Speelman is an artist and granddaughter of Arie Speelman, who commissioned these colored renditions. And there is generous textual commentary prefacing each of the book’s eight sections. We travel from Jaffa to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, Galilee and much more. Village life comes palpably alive, evoking Jesus’ own time. Included too are numerous depictions of the Bedouin and their practices, homes and families at work or play, beggars and shepherds, potters and carpenters, synagogues and mosques. The book is a veritable pilgrimage to first-century Palestine, a close look into history that will be cherished by all people of the Book."

Holiday Gift Books: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ABRAHAM in New York Times Book Review

Steven Heller rounds up the best visual of books of the season in The New York Times Book Review, beginning with In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs: "Before color photography, and long before the computer made colorization easy, hand-painting with oils and dyes on photo­graphic glass plates was a common way to bring black-and-white images to life. Hand-colored photographs had an otherworldly appearance: not quite real, but close enough to suggest an exotic parallel universe. That made them perfect for travel snapshots — especially of places already rich in fable and legend. In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs, by Richard Hardiman and Helen Speelman, reproduces hundreds of hand-colored pictures taken during the 1920s by the Matson Photo Agency, which was run by American Christian expatriates in Jerusalem.

In 1966, those expatriates — G. Eric Matson and his wife, Edith — gave their entire photographic collection to the Library of Congress. As the curator George S. Hobart notes in an introductory essay, Eric Matson was devoted to the prints; even years after donating them, he spent long hours “cleaning, identifying and organizing his beloved group of photographic negatives.”

The Matsons belonged to a small Christian community, the American Colony, founded in Palestine in 1881. As a commercial venture, the colony sold hand-colored prints to tourists. One of their biggest customers in the 1920s and early 1930s was a wealthy Dutch Christian, Arie Speelman, who selected more than 1,200 images of landscapes, people and structuresfor his “Palestina Evening” slide shows, promoting pilgrimages to the Holy Land. His collection was eventually donated to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, and it provides the pictures for this book. (Speelman’s granddaughter Helen is one of the authors.)

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. The stone buildings in “Bethlehem Alley­way” and the clothing of the “Bedouin Girl” could almost be digital prints, they’re so precise. 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. “Spring at Cana” — showing Bedouin women and men at a well, possibly in the same town where Jesus is said to have turned water into wine — might be mistaken for a snapshot directly from biblical times, had cameras been invented yet."

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ABRAHAM Featured in BookPage

Joanne Collins recommends "soul-soothing reading for the faithful" in the December issue of BookPage, and points to In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs as one of this year's best holiday gift books: "The photographs of Christians, Jews, and Muslims and their homes and villages were commissioned in the 1920s by Ari Speelman, a devout Dutch Christian. All of them have been hand-colored, which sometimes involved painting with a single human hair. There are excellent short essays providing information about the photographs, Speelman and the collection, and brief introductions of each image, but otherwise the story is told entirely by the photographs. And they are grand, full of rich detail."

Overlook Preview: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ABRAHAM: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs

Arriving soon in bookstores is the magnificent In the Footsteps Of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs. An extraordinary publishing event, this volume presents 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.