Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China then Japan: six countries traversed and photographed by Marc Riboud between 1955 and 1958. Vers l’Orient is a box set comprising five volumes. It is a veritable visual journal, bringing together the most beautiful photographs taken on this long slow journey that was initially undertaken to reach Calcutta. Desirous to discover these age-old civilisations, his first stop was Istanbul, before continuing on his way through the admirable landscapes of Cappadocia and Anatolia. He crossed Persia into Afghanistan and its tribal areas, as Nicolas Bouvier had done not long before him. In 1956, he arrived in India, his initial destination, which he explored for nearly a year. It was from there that he entered Communist China. He ended his “Grand Tour” in Japan in 1958, which was then undergoing full reconstruction after the war, and its society was rapidly evolving. Back in France, Marc Riboud brought home thousands of photographs, representing traces of these ancestral cultures. Those who know the Orient of today will perhaps discover in these photos – produced nearly sixty years ago – what remains when everything seems to change, and, behind its increasing Westernisation, they may glimpse a hidden thread of timelessness.