Émile Gsell

Though he died at an early age, he managed to make several hundred photographs in just over a dozen years featuring a wide range of subject matter including architecture, landscapes, and studio, ethnographic and genre portraits.

[1] In Cochinchina, Gsell was hired by the Commission d'exploration du Mékong, directed by Ernest Doudart de Lagrée (b.

Gsell accompanied the expedition to French Indochina and Siam (now Thailand, and at the time in possession of Angkor) from June to September or October 1866, often receiving suggestions for photographic points of view from Doudart de Lagrée.

On the quality of his Cambodian photographs, Gsell was awarded a medal of merit at the Vienna International Exhibition, held from 1 May to 31 October 1873, and where Gsell exhibited two albums of photographs, one of the ruins of Angkor and the other of "the mores, customs, and types of the Annamite and Cambodian populations".

In April 1875, Gsell accompanied a mission, led by Brossard de Corbigny, to Huế in modern Vietnam, though he was not allowed to photograph the people he met nor the Citadel.

View of central galleries and towers of Angkor Wat , Siem Reap, Khmer (Cambodia) , 1866. Albumen print by Émile Gsell
Group portrait of Doudart de Lagrée and other members of the Commission d'exploration du Mékong , Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1866. Albumen print by Emile Gsell.