The Gunter Mueller Photograph Collection is a rich source of historical images of the Middle East. The Collection itself consists of over 500 commercially produced, hand-colored lantern slides, featuring photographic images taken in the early 20th century in areas of modern-day Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Most images in the Collection were created by the American Colony Photo Department and its successor firm, the Matson Photo Service.

The slides were sold in sets by the American Colony Stores, the commercial department of a missionary community based in Jerusalem. The landscapes and scenes were intended to illustrate biblical sites, or to remind the viewer of well-known biblical passages, but many depict archaeological sites and scenes of interest to tourists.

The Digital images in this book were produced from the hand-colored lantern slides themselves and represent a small sample of the photographs are available in the Collection.

The lantern slides in this collection were produced by the ‘ American Colony Photographers who were based in Jerusalem, Palestine.

The photographers were members of a group of missionaries that emigrated from the USA and Sweden to Jerusalem in the 1880’s. After they had established themselves in their new surroundings they pursued the business of selling photographs and lantern slides to tourists to sustain their organization and their missionary work.