Oblong Folio album (ca. 29.5x 37cm or 11.5x 14.5 in). leaves. With 179 mounted original albumen photos, each ca. 11x14 cm ( 4.5x 5.5in) mounted 4 to a page on beige paper leaves. Ca. 160 photos with period pencil captions in French on the mounts. Period brown full cloth album; boards with colour- and blind-stamped decorative ornaments; decorative endpapers. Binding rubbed on extremities, spine with cracks on hinges, a few photos mildly faded, but overall a very good album of rare, interesting, strong photos.

Historically significant album with 179 original snapshot photos of Bangkok, Chanthaburi, and Luang Prabang, taken and collected by a French diplomat, Count Alexandre de Kergaradec, during his service in the Kingdom of Siam. A graduate of the École navale, Kergaradec made a career in the French Navy and became the first head of the French consulate in Hanoi in 1875. Later, he served as the French Consul and Government Commissioner in Bangkok (1883-1887) and Chargé d’Affaires and Consul General to Siam (1887-1891).

Compiled during Kergaradec’s tenure in the Kingdom of Siam, the album opens with several portraits of the Count and his wife, Henriette (née de Place, 1858-1943), posing in front of the French Consulate. A dozen photos illustrate the life of a French Catholic mission in Siam, showing “Evéché” (“bishop’s residence”), Catholic cathedral, priests and students from “Mission du pére Dessales” (Étienne Dessalles, 1848-1915, French Catholic missionary, served in Bangkok, Chanthaburi and other parts of Siam in 1874-1915), mission school, “maison des religieuses,” group portraits of boys from the school’s French and English programs, and girls from the boarding school (“pensionnaires”).

A series of interesting views of Thai Buddhist temples (mostly in Bangkok) show the Grand Palace complex with Wat Phra Kaew or Temple of the Emerald Buddha (including a view of the model of Angkor Wat installed on the temple grounds on the order of King Rama IV in 1869), Wat Phra Pathom (second tallest Buddhist stupa in the world), Wat Saket, Wat Yannawa (“boat temple”), Wat Phra Kray (including a close-up view of carved bas-reliefs), ruined temples or undergoing restoration (with wooden scaffolding), stone carvings, sculptures, bas-reliefs, &c. Two photos show French and Thai people inside “le monument pour le crémation du second roi” (the funeral meru structure erected for the cremation of King Pinklao or Second King of Siam in 1866). There are also a number of views of Chao Praya River banks and Bangkok canals (with houses, boats and bridges), city streets, Windsor Palace (built in 1881-1884 on the modern-day Rama I Road for the Crown Prince of Thailand, transferred to the Chulalongkorn University in 1911, demolished after 1935), residence of the French ambassador, Royal Barracks (built in 1882-1884 opposite the Grand Palace, today used as the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence of Thailand), “Hôtel Oriental,” lively photos of French private residences (one with a sign “Villa Sans Souci”), the chapel and graves at the Bangkok Protestant cemetery (founded in 1853 on the bank of the Chao Praya River, the chapel still stands), a city hospital, a “Chinese pagoda,” &c.

The album also contains numerous portraits and scenes with the local people - Thai boys from a French musical band (dressed in a uniform, likely, of the French Navy), monks, street performers, native policemen, chained prisoners, “cavaliers Siamois”,  “Cambodiens,” people sitting at a pagoda gate, families, &c.

Eleven historically significant images show the city of Luang Prabang on the upper Mekong River – the capital of the Lao Kingdom of Luang Prabang, which was a vassal state to the Kingdom of Siam up to 1889. Located in the sphere of French interests, the city had the French consulate (headed by explorer Auguste Pavie) established in 1885. Despite a treaty of 1886 between France and Siam, which recognized Siam’s suzerainty over Luang Prabang, the latter became a French protectorate in 1889. This provoked a diplomatic crisis between France and Siam in 1893, culminating in the Paknam incident. Luang Prabang remained a part of the French protectorate of Laos in 1893-1953. The photos, apparently taken in the late 1880s – during the establishment of the French consulate in Luang Prabang or the protectorate itself – show French colonial troops marching under the specially erected triumphal arch and waiting on the bank of the Mekong River, a “temporary post of Mr. Pavie,” a local pagoda, officials who “accompanied” Auguste Pavie, boatsmen on the river bank, children on a town street, &c.

There are also several interesting views of Chanthaburi village (French Catholic church, missionaries’ house, local children, boatsmen, native houses and banks of the Chanthaburi River), Paknam Forts (damaged wall, the interior) &c. Overall an important collection of early original photos of modern-day Thailand and Laos during French colonial expansion in Southeast Asia in the 1880s.