Additional prints of this image are in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the International Center of Photography, New York; and Milwaukee Art Museum.

The photograph offered here is a rare, oversized exhibition print that was featured in the 1959 Das Menschliche Antlitz Europas (The Human Face of Europe), a show organized by Dr. Tas Toth. The goal of the exhibition was to foster a sense of European unity in the difficult decades following World War II. In much the same way that Edward Steichen’s Family of Man had done some years before, The Human Face of Europe stressed the commonality of human experience, focusing specifically, in this case, on Europe. Dr. Toth believed that photography was the ideal medium to carry out this goal. The introduction to the exhibition's catalogue states,

“a genuine, living Europe does exist. . . Yet it is hard to define the concept ‘Europe.’ When we try, the things that divide seem just as strong as the things that unite. Nevertheless, we feel what we cannot express in words. Here, pictures must come to our aid. Pictures express without words what has to be said.”

In addition to Cartier-Bresson, The Human Face of Europe included works by Edward Steichen, Robert Doisneau, Werner Bischoff, David Seymour, Robert Capa, and many other top photographers of the day. The image offered here was also reproduced in Cartier-Bresson’s book of his own photographs of Europe and its people, The Europeans, published in 1955.