SINO-JAPANESE WAR | An album of photographs, 1937

SINO-JAPANESE WAR--[PFANNER, PIERRE]

4 Monate Krieg [Four Months War] Shanghai 1937 [Original photographs] Shanghai, unpublished, 1937

Oblong folio (18.1 x 26.5 cm), 44 pp.; each with one to four original photographs, for a total of 102 photos (c.90 x 60mm.), mounted, Chinese embroidered cloth binding

A unique ensemble of original photographs by the Swiss commercial traveller and amateur entomologist Pierre Pfanner (1901-1985), who happened to be in Shanghai in 1937, when the Sino-Japanese war began, or intensified, depending on the point of view. Pfanner compiled a chronological pictorial record of events. The small but sharp images show atrocities, mainly by bombing, from both sides, and the destruction of large parts of Shanghai. The photos are captioned with neat German handwriting in white on black. One photograph was not made by Pfanner - it shows the British Army officer Major-General Alexander Patrick Drummond Telfer-Smollett (1884-1954), chairman of the Chinese International Relief Committee with Father Jaquinot, standing in a Chinese street. The French Jesuit Robert de Besange "Prêtre Jaquinot" (1878-1946) set up a successful model of safety zones that saved over half a million Chinese people during the Second Sino-Japanese War.