Baron Raimund von Stillfried

He was the son of Baron (Freiherr) August Wilhelm Stillfried von Rathenitz (d. 1806) and Countess Maria Anna Johanna Theresia Walburge Clam-Martinitz (1802–1874).

[1] For the 1873 Vienna World Exposition, the government of Japan commissioned Stillfried to travel to Hokkaido, where he took photographs documenting the process of the country's modernization, as well as of ethnic Ainu people.

[2] According to a review of a monographic book on his life and work, "Stillfried came to Japan just as it was opening to trade, tourism, and Western influences.

And with the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, the new imperial government was figuring out how best to represent itself as a modern nation through photography, and Stillfried was well positioned to assist.

In 1876, he sold the larger part of his stock to his protégé, the Japanese photographer Kusakabe Kimbei, and left Japan forever in 1881.