Heinz von Perckhammer was born in Merano, Austria-Hungary (now Italy) in 1895. During the First World War he served aboard the SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth during the Siege of Tsingtao and between 1917 and 1919 was held as a prisoner of war. It was during this time when he was held captive that his interest in photography began. He apparently remained in China for much of the 1920s, and took these soft-focused and stylized photographs of women from Macao brothels.

In the introduction to Edle Nacktheit in China he writes: ‘Pictures of nude women, setting aside the ugly caricatures of the “Spring pictures” of erotic scenes, simply do not exist in China. Therefore I believe, I have created something entirely new and of value.’ Edle Nacktheit in China was later banned by the Nazis as degenerate art (Entartete Kunst) and appeared on the Liste des schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums [List of harmful and undesirable writing].