Album of unseen prints from Sir Cecil Beaton and Lee Miller revealed

A cache of amazing unseen prints documenting the wartime era by Sir Cecil Beaton and Lee Miller has been revealed for the first time. 

The so-called 'Miller-Beaton scrapbook' contains several previously unpublished images by the celebrated 20th-century photographers. 

The album was compiled by Roland Haupt, who used to work as a darkroom printer at British Vogue and developed pictures both artists took for the magazine. 

The incredible book, which also includes his own photos, spans from 1943 to 1949, offering a fascinating record of the end and aftermath of the Second World War. 

The artefact, which has never been displayed publicly before, includes some of the earliest prints of Miller's most iconic images.

This includes an alternative version of the infamous picture of her in Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's bathtub in his vacant Munich apartment in April 1945. 

Many of the images were printed by Haupt in Vogue's London darkroom, with the album a collection of his favourites of those he was asked to process. 

The book, which was passed down to his family after his death in the early sixties, has now been acquired by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries. 

Photography dealer Michael Hoppen obtained it directly from his relatives, bringing this astonishing wartime record into a public collection for the first time. 

Haupt wrote in the book: 'This is the story of my favourite photographer Lee Miller - Vogue war correspondent - she followed the American army from the beaches of Normandy, five days after D-Day, up to the final entry into Berlin and after that she continued her journey visiting countries that had been occupied, having many exciting experiences - these are a few of the beautiful pictures she sent back.' 

It has now emerged Miller and Beaton sent their film back to London from Europe and Africa for Haupt to process, develop and print. 

He would then forward the pictures on to Vogue and other outlets for publication. 

Mr Hoppen, who was contacted directly by the family about the book, called the document an 'empirical time capsule'. 

He said the relationship between Haupt and Miller was 'clearly very important' - and 'instrumental' in showing how 'extraordinarily brave' she was. 

'It's clearly a very personal album,' he continued. 

This 'amazing discovery', Mr Hoppen added, could prove to be one of the most important albums of 20th century photography to have come to light.  

Miller started out as a fashion model in her native New York in the 1920s, before moving to Paris, where she became a fashion and fine art photographer. 

She was living in London when the Blitz began in 1940, which kickstarted her career as a photojournalist - and she soon became the official war photographer at Vogue.  

At the start of her time at the magazine, Miller printed her own photographs in the darkroom - but in 1940, she trained her Haupt, her assistant, to take over.

It left her free to work as one of the few accredited female war correspondents, embedded in the US Army, with her images published in British and American Vogue.

His newly uncovered album contains several pivotal moments from her war photography career, including further shots of Hitler's Munich home.

The infamous bathtub shot, taken by fellow photographer David E Scherman, was Miller 'sticking two fingers up at Hitler', according to her son Antony Penrose. 

She had trodden all over his bathroom floor with her boots 'covered with the filth of Dachau', he said - the concentration camp she had just visited to photograph. 

Other images show American troops destroying his Alpine retreat in Berchtesgaden, known as the Eagle's Nest, and German soldiers surrendering to the US Army. 

She also captured the liberation of Dachau and another camp at Buchenwald, as well an arresting picture of two captured and beaten SS Nazi paramilitary officers.

Her varied artistic milieu can also be seen in a snap of Miller, in her army uniform, talking to painter Pablo Picasso. 

Miller's incredible legacy has only been fully recognised in recent years, which have seen a solo exhibition at Tate Britain and a biopic film starring Kate Winslet. 

Haupt also worked as an assistant to Beaton, who worked for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar alongside Miller in the same period. 

The British photographer was stationed in North Africa during the 1940s, where the Allies staged and eventually won a campaign. 

The newly discovered scrapbook contains photos of his showing the surreal, stark beauty of the desert, as well as the physical extremes endured by troops. 

Alongside the pictures of the Saharan frontier, there are also several shots he took in London, of subjects ranging from theatre sets to newspaper cuttings. 

On top of his role as an official government war photographer, Beaton was also known for his portraits of the era's most recognisable cultural figures. 

German actress Marlene Dietrich, American dancer Fred Astaire and British playwright Noel Coward are among those stars featured in Haupt's book. 

Beaton was also behind some of the most iconic images of the British royal family - and even picked up three Oscars, for costume design and art direction. 

Richard Ovenden, head of the Bodleian Library, and Helen Hamlyn, director of Oxford University Libraries, said: 'The acquisition by the Bodleian marks an important step in preserving this unique album for scholarship and in enriching our understanding of the role of photography in documenting the Second World War. 

'Much research remains to be undertaken on the album, which is a highly unusual record of the relationship between a darkroom technician and two great photographers.' 

Now part of the Bodleian's permanent collection, the book will undergo conservation and cataloging before being made available to researchers. 

The library said it also 'plans to explore opportunities for public display and wider access'.