Franz Keller, designer, cartographer, engineer and painter and arrived in Brazil in 1858. He became Keller-Leuzinger by marrying the daughter of a George Leuzinger in 1867, very known German typographer who lived in Rio de Janeiro. That same year he and his father were tasked by the Brazilian Imperial government to make a survey of the rivers near to Bolivia after a Diplomatic Settlement between the two countries. This voyage was recorded in the book Vom Amazon und Madeira of 1874, published in Germany, with 68 engravings and was reported in a series of illustrated magazines in Brazil and worldwide. This book was a very interesting ethnography with reports of the geography and social conditions of the Brazilian Amazon. This paper aims to systematize the information on the main work of Franz Keller-Leuzinger, with the primary focus on the interplay between text and image, and their reception in Brazil. The French magazine Le Tour du Monde also published a lengthy article, in 1874, translated by J. Gourdault, with 23 of the original woodcuts. In France, this article had some impact and influenced the novel La Jangada, 1881, of Jules Verne.
In Brazil, the details of this trip mainly circulated in magazines such as Ilustração Brasileira whose editor was Henrique Fleiuss. The narrative was told in seven illustrated articles from July 1876 to May 1877. The beauty and eloquence of the images ensures the circulation of the works of Keller-Leuzinger until today. And produces an effect that deserves to be studied: the dynamic relationship between text and image in communicating science to the public.