Revisiting Palestine Illustrated : 100 Years after Frank Scholten’s visit to the ‘Holy Land’

Abstract

During the turbulent period following the First World War, Dutch photographer Frank Scholten (1881-1942) travelled to Palestine with the aim of producing an ‘illustrated Bible'. He arrived in Palestine in 1921, ultimately staying for two years, documenting Palestine as the British Mandate was formally being established. Contrarily to many other European photographers portraying Orientalist inspirations, Franck Scholten photographed daily life through the various confessional and ethnic communities, social classes, cities and landscapes of Palestine.

This book revisits the recently released Scholten photographic collection on Palestine by presenting different Christian communities, their diversity, and the changes they faced, along with Muslim and Jewish populations, in early 1920s Palestine.