The book is about Romania’s first and so far the most prominent art photographer, who could offer his talent of drawing and photographing to four Romanian monarchs during his 50 years of work. He was not only a good portrait photographer, one of the best photographers of ethnography, a great landscape and city photographer but one of the first press-photographers as well, who took photographs on both sides of the frontline in the Crimean War preceding Roger Fenton. Moreover, he was a good water-colourist and painter, founder of a journal, printer and lithographer. In addition to the biography, Károly Kincses’ study deals with Szathmári’s photographic career started in 1848. It gives a detailed account about the albums compiled by Szathmári and devotes a unit to his well-known pictures he took as a war-correspondent, to the story of the albums made during the Crimean War. Marian Vida has written about the water-colourist Szathmári, she gives the most detailed analysis of Szathmári’s water-colour paintings ever published and at the same time draws a parallel between Szathmári and other biedermeier water-colourists. Zsuzsa Farkas has taken into account the Szathmári- Pap pieces that can be found in different Hungarian public collections and indicates his place in Hungarian cultural history. The volume is completed by an abundant bibliography.