{
"data": {
"id": 170101,
"accession_number": "2012.317",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Festive Burmese in their best clothes stroll around the Great Golden Spire of the Shwedagon Pagoda during Thadingyut, 1951. Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908\u20132004). Gelatin silver print; image: 16.1 x 24.1 cm (6 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.); paper: 16.1 x 24.1 cm (6 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of George Stephanopoulos, 2012.317. \u00a9 Henri Cartier-Bresson",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Festive Burmese in their best clothes stroll around the Great Golden Spire of the Shwedagon Pagoda during Thadingyut",
"creation_date": "1951",
"creation_date_earliest": 1951,
"creation_date_latest": 1951,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 20th century"
],
"technique": "gelatin silver print",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1951-Present",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 16.1 x 24.1 cm (6 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.); Paper: 16.1 x 24.1 cm (6 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.161,
"height_inch": 6,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"width": 0.241,
"width_inch": 9,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
},
"paper": {
"height": 0.161,
"height_inch": 6,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"width": 0.241,
"width_inch": 9,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Henri Cartier-Bresson",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on interior of mat: B/258\"\r\nTyped in blue ink on adhesive label on verso: \"FESTIVAL AT THE GOLD PAGODA. Pix by Henri Cartier Bresson of \"Magnum\"/This month thousands of devout Burmese flock to the fantastic Shwe/Dr(r crossed out in blue ink)agon in Rangoon for the annual Festival of Fire.\"\r\nTyped in black ink on adhesive label on verso: \"32 (220-27)/Festive Burmese in their best clothes stroll around the great golden spire of the Shwe Dagon pagoda during Thadingyut.\"\r\nStamped in black ink on verso: \"SEE/13OCT1951/ILLUSTRATED\"\r\nStamped in black ink on verso: \"PROPERTY OF THE/PERIODICALS ART LIBRARY,/191 HIGH HOLBORN. W.G.I./MUST BE RETURNED UNDAMAGED (underlined)\"\r\nTyped in blue ink on adhesive label on verso: \"FILE BURMA/RELIGION.\"\r\nWritten in pencil on verso: \"LLO-27\"\r\nWritten in pencil on verso: \"32 (circled)\"\r\nWritten in pencil on verso: \"HCB-13-94\"\r\nWritten in pencil on verso: \"8-\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 449919,
"title": "Text and Image in Southern Asia",
"description": "Text and Image in Southern Asia. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26, 2022-March 5, 2023).",
"opening_date": "2022-08-26T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "George Stephanpoulos [b. 1961], New York, NY, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?\u20132012",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "December 3, 2012\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Buddhist manuscripts and images are kept in monasteries that are also sites of monuments called stupas or pagodas, which contain sacred relics. Many Buddhists visit the monasteries on festival days, such as Thadingyut, shown here. Thadingyut commemorates the return of the Buddha back to earth after spending a season in heaven giving teachings to his mother, who died seven days after he was born.
The colossal Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar\u2019s capital of Yangon (Rangoon) was first constructed in the 6th century. Its current expanded form, covered with gold plates, was completed in 1775 by King Hsinbyushin (Burmese, reigned 1763\u201376). Dwarfing the visitors, its spire soars to nearly 350 feet. Only the moldings of the base terraces and clusters of smaller stupas are visible in the background.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80078282"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2012.317",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of George Stephanopoulos",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 170101,
"creators": [
{
"id": 77,
"description": "Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908\u20132004)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Henri Cartier-Bresson French, 1908-2004\r\n\r\nHenri Cartier-Bresson (born in Chanteloup) has achieved fame for his work as a pioneering photojournalist and for his ability to capture the \"decisive moment\" in candid images of people and events around the world. After studying painting in the 1920s (including one year with cubist Andr\u00e9 Lhote), Cartier-Bresson became interested in photography while recuperating from illness in 1930-31. Working first with a box camera and then with a 35mm Leica camera, he began to take pictures for magazines and newspapers. In the early 1930s his photographs were featured in exhibitions at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York and the Club Atheneo in Madrid. During this period he traveled and photographed in France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and Mexico.\r\n\tIn 1935 Cartier-Bresson studied cinematography with Paul Strand in New York City, returning to France the following year to work as an assistant on Jean Renoir's films La vie est \u00e0 nous and Une partie de campagne. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Cartier-Bresson made Victorie de la vie, a film documenting conditions in Spanish hospitals. Three years later, while serving in the French army during World War II, he was captured by the Germans. He escaped from prison in 1943 and joined the French resistance. Following the war his work was featured in a major one-artist exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1946), and in 1947 he joined Ropert Capa, George Rodger, and David Seymour in founding magnum Photos, the well-known cooperative agency for photojournalism.\r\n\tOver the next two decades Cartier-Bresson traveled the world as a freelance photojournalist. His work appeared in a number of exhibitions during this time (Mus\u00e9e des Arts D\u00e9coratifs, Paris, International Center of Photography, New York, and others) as well as in numerous magazine articles and more than a dozen books, including Images \u00e0 la sauvette (The Decisive Moment, 1952), D'une Chine \u00e0 l'autre (1954; From One China to Another, U.S. publication, 1956), Les Europ\u00e9ens (The Europeans, 1955), Mouscou, vu par Henri Cartier-Bresson (People of Moscow, 1955), and the Face of Asia (1972). In 1966 Cartier-Bresson left magnum, retiring from photojournalism to concentrate on his drawing. M.M.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1908",
"death_year": "2004",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2012-12-03T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1951,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1951",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Festive Burmese in their best clothes stroll around the Great Golden Spire of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda during Thadingyut"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:53:18.439000"
}
}