Johan Rudolf Bonnet was born into a Dutch family of Huguenot descent, who had been bakers by trade for generations. As a student of the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, he was initiated into drawing and painting in the academic tradition of the early 20th century. In 1920, he left Holland for Italy, where he would spend the best part of the next eight years, mostly in the village of Anticoli Corrado South of Rome. It was in Italy too that he first heard of Bali from Nieuwenkamp, the illustrator of the island's culture.

It was his brother and sister whom Rudolf Bonnet first visited with his parents after a journey to Dutch Indies on the S.S. 'Jan Pieterszoon Coen'. Once in Semarang, however, the memory of the photogra...