Focusing attention on ancient imperial tombs

German camera company Leica is bringing images of the 1930s back to life

Germany's Leica Camera AG, which celebrated its first camera model's 100th anniversary last year, is set to commission a special set of photographs of the 1,000-year-old Western Xia Imperial Tombs in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The pictures, donated to the Ningxia government, were taken with one of Leica's early cameras by Wulf-Diether Graf Zu Castell-Rüdenhausen, a former Lufthansa pilot who worked in China from 1933 to 1936.