Prestel Publishing is an art book publisher, with books on art, architecture, photography, design, fashion, craft, culture, history and ethnography. Lists range from museum guides, to encyclopaedias, art and architecture monographs to facsimile volumes and books for children. Founded in 1924 by Hermann Loeb in Frankfurt, Germany, originally for the publication of old master prints, the company is named after Johann Gottlieb Prestel, the famous 18th-century German engraver. Prestel has been part of the Random House Publishing Group since 2008 with its head office in Munich, and a branch in London. History Inception and founding In 1774 German engraver and painter Johann Gottlieb Prestel founded an art dealership in Nuremberg, which developed into an art gallery and was relocated to Frankfurt in 1783. At the end of the 19th century, one of his heirs converted the business into an auction house, which the antiquarian Albert Voigtländer-Tetzner acquired in 1910. In the 1920s, Prestel Verlag was finally separated from the rest of the company. The art historian Hermann Loeb bought the publishing holdings and had Prestel-Verlags GmbH registered in the commercial register on July 18, 1924. Nazi Germany and the war years In 1933 the Nazis forced the Jewish Loeb to sell the publishing house to one of his employees. In exile in Switzerland, Loeb founded the Holbein Verlag, which worked closely with Prestel and also published works in his name. The Frankfurt parent company, whose new owner was also made an officer of the company, got into serious economic difficulties at the end of the 1930s. The business could only be maintained with the financial support of a paper wholesaler in Augsburg. As a result, Prestel Verlag was sold to Paul Capellmann, a lawyer from Aachen, who converted the company into a limited partnership based in Munich in 1940. The books stored in Leipzig and the office in Munich fell victim to the Second World War, and on February 15, 1945, the Reich Chamber of Culture closed Prestel Verlag. Post-war revival and expansion After the war, Capellmann and his wife resumed publishing in Gmund am Tegernsee. In 1946 typographer and printer Gustav Stresow was appointed head of Prestel Verlag. Hermann Loeb and others advised him on the reconstruction. Following Capellmann’s death in 1947, his widow Georgett and Stresow took over the publishing house and expanded its production from books on drawings and prints to include painting, architecture, and photography. In