Having arrived in Italy in 1878 for health reasons. Baton Wilhelm von Gloeden devoted himself to photography, showing evidence from the beginning of his great artistic ability. His photographic work is centred on the representation of compositions with a classical taste, in which the presence of male and adolescence nudes refers to a knowledge of the Winckelmanian culture of the "rules of beauty" and of artistic formulas with an African and mythological flavour.