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Henri Cartier- Bresson, Beautiful Jaipur, Jaipur: Information Bureau, Government of Jaipur [The Times of India Press, Bombay], 1948, first edition

75 pages including 64 photographs reproduced in semitone, text by Max Olivier; illustrated red cloth with black title and illustration of a vase of flowers on the cover (without the dust jacket)
9.7 x 6.9 in (24.7 x 17.7 cm)

A Compliments Slip from the Director of Public Relations, Jaipur, Rajasthan to front free endpaper. Written in ink "R. L. Turner Jaipur/ X'mas 1951" at the front pastedown.

The printing was ordered by the Jaipur Darbar and copies were given away as gifts. A very rare book by Henri Cartier-Bresson, with photographs taken during his trip to India on the occasion of the wedding of Princess Premkumari Sahiba in May 1948, with his wife Eli. It is a book that praises the climate of Jaipur and the beauty of its architecture. This publication was created four years before the release of the book "IMAGE A LA SAUVETTE" (The Decisive Moment).

Preceded only by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition catalogue from 1947, this is the photographer's rare second monograph.

Cartier-knack Bresson's for capturing the "decisive moment" is on show in this unpretentious travelogue, while missing the majesty and print quality of his later books. The images, with their uniform grey tone, have a nostalgic timeless character that transports the spectator back to a time when photography exposed cultures and places that were rarely known outside of their boundaries.