Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt: Artworks and Letters of John Douglas Woodward, 1878-1879

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John Douglas Woodward (1846-1924) was one of the best-known American landscape illustrators of his day, working on assignment for some of the most prestigious magazines and publishers of his time. Historian Sue Rainey fell in love with his evocative, meticulously rendered work when she produced the catalog for an exhibition at the Bayly Museum at the University of Virginia in 1997. She was inspired to take a more-in-depth look at his images of the Holy Land, which he made while traveling with fellow illustrator Harry Fenn. Woodward's beautifully detailed drawings combined with his letters present a charming and vivid account of a region esteemed for its religious history, and now visited by record numbers of tourists.Woodward's letters about his travels, the places he worked and the people he met are fascinating reading, illuminating not only his own experiences as an American traveling in an area where few went at the time, but also shedding light for contemporary audiences on what the area looked like in the late nineteenth century, before it had been significantly altered by immigration, partition, and the ravages of war.