Inside Steve Jobs' home office (2004)

Rare photos taken shortly after his cancer operation are now available in Getty's archives

On July 31, 2004, Steve Jobs underwent surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his pancreas. A few weeks later, he permitted Diana Walker, his favorite Time Magazine contract photographer, to shoot him in his Palo Alto home.

A selection of those photos have surfaced in Getty Images' archives, where they were discovered by allaboutstevejobs.com. On Monday they turned up in a series of higher-profile blogs, including, last night, Leander Kahney's Cult of Mac.

Time used one of the photos to illustrate Apple (AAPL) CEO's "people who mattered" entry in the 2004 issue that named George W. Bush Person of the Year.

You can see the rest of Walker's Aug. 2004 take here. She published more her Jobs photos in The Bigger Picture: 30 Years of Portraits (2007).

Update: Photo removed at the request of Getty Images. The photos are still available at Cult of Mac.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]