Born to an aristocratic Austrian family in 1839, Baron Raimund von Stillfried spent his youth adventuring around the world before opening a photo studio in Yokohama, Japan.
There, he specialized in producing hand-colored souvenir photos of traditional Japanese "types" for wealthy Western tourists to bring home. His costumed portraits became highly influential in crafting European perceptions of Japan.
In the mid-1870s, he traveled to Shanghai and applied the same aesthetic conventions to traditional Chinese "types," posing beggars, workers and high society people in carefully staged portraits.
