Oblong Folio album ca. 28,5x38 cm (11 ¼ x 15 in). 50 thick card stock leaves. With 50 mounted albumen photos, mostly ca. 21,5x27 cm (8 ½ x 10 ½ in); six smaller photos are from ca. 18x24 cm (7 x 9 ½ in) to ca. 16x22,5 cm (6 ¼ x 8 ¾ in). Several photos numbered in negative; no captions. Period black half sheep album with cloth boards; marbled endpapers; all edges gilt. Binding rubbed on extremities, corners bumped, mounts slightly waved, but overall a very good album of strong interesting photos.

Historically significant extensive collection of large early albumen photos of the ruins of the Angkorian temples (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom complex) and contemporary Cambodia, from the time of discovery of the country’s ancient history and architecture by French colonial authorities. Cambodia was declared a French protectorate in 1863 and was integrated into French Indochina in 1887, gaining back its independence in 1949-1953. The album includes thirty excellent professional studio photos of Angkor Wat, Bayon and other Angkorian temples, showing Angkor Wat’s entrance gate and central tower, pavilions, porticos, exterior and interior of galleries, architectural ornaments carved on columns and doorways, bas-reliefs with the figures of devata spirits, smaller temples covered with dense vegetation, &c. Several photos feature Cambodians and French travellers or colonial residents posing in the temples’ settings.

Twenty photos depict other parts of Cambodia (with at least one image of the other parts of French Indochina, showing the Governor’s Palace in Saigon, which was built in 1868-73 and demolished during the Vietnam War in 1962). The photos of Phnom Penh include two views of the wall and entrance gate to the Royal Palace (constructed in 1866-1870), featuring the Chan Chhaya or Moonlight Pavilion and a corner pavilion, now removed. There are also images of the colonial Treasury (Trésor du Cambodge), the walls of the city jail (with the sign “Prison” on the building on the far left), the golden statue of Buddha in the Wat Phnom temple, and the city port on the Mekong River. The other photos show Cambodian temples, settlements, local families, monks, French colonial residents posing next to Cambodian thatched-roof houses, groups of ox-cart drivers, &c. Overall an important collection of large, well-preserved early photos of Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh and Cambodia in the late 19th century.