Lot 132: EMILE GSELL (1838-1879)

An album of mounted albumen prints, titled Monuments Khmers on spine and upper cover. [Vietnam?: circa 1866-1873]. Oblong 2° (293 x 487mm). 94 mounted albumen print photographs (from 94 x 56mm to 248 x 319mm), mounted on the recto of 34 leaves, 15 photographs signed in the negative 'E Gsell' and numbered, nine others numbered. (Some fading to margins of most images.) Contemporary black half morocco gilt, titled in gilt on upper cover, spine in five compartments with raised bands, titled in gilt in the second, the others with repeat decoration in gilt (affected by damp, scuffed).

AN IMPORTANT EARLY PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD OF ONE OF THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD BY A HIGHLY GIFTED PHOTOGRAPHER: ONE OF THE FIRST TO WORK IN THE REGION. Gsell was the first professional photographer to settle in Saigon in 1866. In the same year he took part in the Mekong exploration mission led by Doudart de Lagrée (1823-1868). Angkor Wat had been 'rediscovered' by the missionary Bouillevaux in December 1850, but its exploration by members of the Mekong expedition marked the start of what was to become the first systematic programme to record Cambodian antiquities. The present album is particularly important, not only for the quality of the images, but also because it includes images that were taken in 1866 during the very earliest stage of the recording of the area. Cf. Philippe Franchini and Jéröme Ghesquière. Photographes en Indochine. Tonkin, Annan, Cochinchine, Cambodge et Laos au XIXe siècle (Paris: Musée Guimet, 2001).

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