Oblong Folio album ca. 27x35,5 cm (10 ¾ x 14 in). 24 card stock leaves. With 66 mounted albumen photos, mostly large images from ca. 23x29 cm (9 x 11 ¼ in) to ca. 16,5x21,5 cm (6 ½ x 8 ½ in); twenty-nine smaller photos are ca. 11,6x16 cm (4 ½ x6 ¼ in). Four studio photos are captioned in negative; three are with the studios’ credentials stamped or signed in negative (“Zangaki,” “C.A. Co. Ltd.,” “G.R. Lambert & Co., Singapore”); five images of Angkor Wat and other temples numbered in negative. Ca. 40 images with period pencil captions in French on the mounts. With six loosely inserted albumen photos (duplicates of the ones in the album), ca. 11,5x16 cm (4 ½ x 6 ¼ in) or slightly smaller; all mounted on period card; one photo with a period pencil caption in French n verso. Later brown quarter sheep album with marble papered boards; marbled endpapers; all edges gilt. Binding rubbed on extremities, spine with minor cracks on the hinges, several images with minor tears or losses on extremities, a few photos \mildly faded, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.

Historically significant extensive collection of early original albumen photos of French colonial Cambodia, Cochinchina and Annam (modern-day Cambodia, southern and central Vietnam), which includes twenty excellent views of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temple complexes. Two images of Angkor Wat - the main entrance and the cruciform gallery staircase - were attributed to a famous Saigon photographer Émile Gsell, based on the collections of the National Library of France and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The other images, possibly dating back to the 1880s, show Angkor Wat (western entry, central tower, library, Buddha’s statues inside the cruciform terrace, porticos, exterior and interior of the inner galleries), Angkor Thom (several entrance gates, “face towers” in the Bayon temple, Phimeanakas temple) and smaller temples covered with dense vegetation, &c. Several photos feature Cambodians and French travellers posing in the temples’ settings.

The album also contains several large, well-preserved views of Phnom Penh (botanical garden, a group of elephant drivers) and Saigon (river views with French gunboats and a mail steamer, a nearby village). Very interesting is a scene with “Chinese firefighters” extinguishing a fire in the Cholon neighbourhood of Saigon, as well as a group portrait of members of the “Cercle Cycliste,” posing in a Saigon park; their names thoroughly captioned (“[Helary?], […?], [Bonnefoy?], Bonade, Jeandot, Mignot, Girard”).

The smaller photos mostly depict modern-day central and southern Vietnam – the town of Rach Gia (blockhouse, entrance to the canal), a village in Khanh Hoa province, the ruins of “Tours Cham à Nha Trang” – apparently, Po Nagar temple tower near Nha Trang (two images feature a French man, possibly the album’s compiler). There are also several interesting group portraits of native “Mai” and Cham people from the Binh Thuan and Khanh Hoa provinces.

Six photos portray French travellers and their guides and porters during a “voyage d’exploration” – “after breakfast,” during a “stop in forest,” drinking local wine (“mon compagnon de voyage buvant le vin Moi”), and resting in Rach Gia. Four images are lively scenes with groups of French cyclists in Saigon, posing with their bicycles and “pousse-pousse” rickshaw carts or standing on a “velodrome en construction <…> inauguration le II X 1892.”

The album also includes six large studio photos, apparently collected by the compiler on the way to or from French Cochinchina. There are two views of the Suez Canal (one with the title and credentials of Zangaki brothers, fl. ca. 1870s-1890s), two views of Colombo – Mount Lavinia Hotel (by the “Colombo Apothecaries Co. Ltd.,” fl. ca. 1880s-1890s) and the raid and the wharf; and two views of Singapore – “Boat Quai” (by Gustave Richard Lambert; 1846-1907) and a public festivity at the “Cricket pavilion on New Year’s Day” (with a pencil caption “Singapore – Hotel de l’Europe” on the mount).

Overall an important collection of large, well-preserved early photos of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and southern and central Vietnam in the second half of the 19th century.

Emile Gsell “was, like J. Thompson, one of the first ever to photograph the temple of Angkor Vat in June 1866. He was then following the exploration mission of the Mekong, under the commandment of E. Doudart de Lagrée. In September or October 1866, he established a studio in Saigon. Afterwards he participated in two other official missions: one in Hue, April 1875, under navy lieutenant Brossart de Corbigny, the other upstream the Red River, with de Kergaradec, French consul in Hanoi, from November 1876 to January 1877. The utmost quality of his photographic production owed him a medal of merit during the World’s fair of 1873 in Vienna. He was one of the first professional photographers to settle in Saigon and probably the only one to remain in practice there such a long time, until his demise on October 16th, 1879. The collection of his works was then exploited first by O. Wegener in the early 1880s, then by Vidal, under his name or under Salin-Vidal, until the end of 1883. His works comprise hundreds of photographs, portraits, landscapes, most of which may be found in the photo archives of Guimet museum, Paris” (Ghesquière, J. Gsell, Emile// Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Vol. 1. A-I/ Ed. by J. Hannavy. 2008, p. 624).