Published in 1998 by The British Council (Visual Arts Publications), Madame Yevonde presents the work of Yevonde Philone Middleton, known professionally as Madame Yevonde (1893–1975). The book is a concise, 100-page English-language account of a photographer whose practice belongs both to the history of portraiture and to the emergence of colour photography as an artistic medium. Its subjects include exhibitions, women photographers, colour photography, and artistic photography, placing Yevonde within a broader cultural and photographic history rather than treating her images as isolated period curiosities.

Yevonde established herself as a London studio photographer and, by 1921, was recognised as a respected portrait photographer. Her work is especially significant for its engagement with colour: vivid, carefully constructed imagery became a defining part of her practice. That emphasis matters because it shifts attention from photography as simple record-making toward the studio image as an authored, designed object—one in which pose, atmosphere, colour, and the presentation of the sitter can be deliberately shaped.

For a collector, the book’s value lies in this focused encounter with a photographer whose career connects portrait practice, women’s photographic history, and the development of colour photography. It offers a compact point of reference for understanding the range of Yevonde’s achievement and the historical conditions in which her images were made. The hardcover volume, identified by ISBN 9780863553783, is therefore best approached as a serious documentary and visual introduction to an important British photographer, rather than simply as a reproduction of fashionable portraits.