ÉMILE GSELL (1838-1879) An album titled Ruines d'Ang-Cor, Cambodge. Album with approximately 41 exceptionally early photographs depicting Angkor Wat, including its vast ruins, temples, the landscape, and architectural details. Includes a group portrait of the French expedition members, including the director Doudart de Lagrée and other members of the Commission d'exploration du Mékong, seated in the ruins at Angkor Wat. Albumen prints, the images measuring 3 3/4x2 1/4 to 9 1/8x12 1/8 inches (9.5x5.7 to 15.6x11.4 cm.), and the reverse, mounted recto only, the smaller prints up to 4 per page. Oblong folio, gilt-lettered red cloth boards, lightly worn. 1866
Gsell, who was French by birth, was stationed in Southeast Asia, becoming the first commercial photographer based in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). He was a member of at least three scientific expeditions, and the images from the first, to Angkor Wat, are among the earliest known from the site. Many of these images are in this album.
Gsell was hired by the Commission d'exploration du Mékong, directed by Ernest Doudart de Lagrée, who was apparently influenced by the images made by John Thomson in China, to photograph Angkor (the French having marked their formal annexation of what was called Cochinchina into the French Empire in 1861, formalizing the beginning of the colonial era of France in Southeast Asia). This expedition took place from June to September or October 1866. It was after this expedition that Gsell established himself as a commercial photographer in Saigon. He returned to Angkor in 1873, producing two albums which were shown at the Vienna International Expedition.
