Joseph Christian Leyendecker was a German-American illustrator. He is considered to be one of the pre-eminent American illustrators of the early 20th century. Leyendecker was born on March 23, 1874, at Montabaur in Western Germany, a tiny village 18km east of the Rhine. In 1882, the Leyendecker family emigrated to Chicago, Illinois. After working in late adolescence for a Chicago engraving firm, J. Manz & Company, and completing his first commercial commission of sixty Bible illustrations for th