The palace and surrounding city, Fatehpur Sikri, was built in the 16th century with grand architecture that evoked the splendor of past Persian courts and was intended to be one of the most beautiful cities ever built. Although the imperil city was abandoned early on due to water depletion, its grandeur endured. Cartier-Bresson's geometrically rich composition embraces the exquisite architecture in this image with the delicate inclusion of two small birds in the foreground, void of human presence.
Henri Cartier-Bresson first traveled to India in December 1947, taking a 6,888 nautical mile journey by sea from England. Upon arriving, he encountered a newly independent nation whose people were experiencing mounting tensions due to the religiously based partition of India and Pakistan. Amidst this conflict, Cartier-Bresson captured one of his best known images, Srinagar, Kashmir, 1948, (lot 73), which depicts Muslim women praying on Hari Parbal Hill, with the rising sun illuminating the Himalayas.
Most notably, in January 1948, Cartier-Bresson met with Mahatma Gandhi and documented the ceremonial breaking of a six day fast that Gandhi undertook as a call to restore peace. Only ninety minutes after their meeting on January 30, Gandhi was assassinated, and Cartier-Bresson, with his Leica camera, became a witness to history, capturing the immediate sorrow and subsequent proceedings for Gandhi’s cremation and the scattering of his ashes. The nationwide mourning is evocatively rendered in a depiction of Gandhi’s funeral pyre (lot 75). This coverage of Gandhi’s final days catapulted Cartier-Bresson’s status as a premier photojournalist, increasing demand for his pictures from leading publications including LIFE, Harper’s Bazaar, Now, and The New York Times Magazine. Over the course of the next 40 years, Cartier-Bresson continued to return to India, traveling there six times through 1987.