Bonzes de la Grande Pagode
1866
Medium
Albumen silver prints from glass negatives
Dimensions
17 x 10.9 cm (6 11/16 x 4 5/16 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.501 (37)
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1866, French photographer Émile Gsell captured *Bonzes de la Grande Pagode*, a striking portrait of Buddhist monks at one of Vietnam's grand pagodas during the early years of French colonial rule in Indochina. Gsell, among the first Europeans to document daily life in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), this intimate study of robed men, their serene expressions and traditional attire offering a rare glimpse into Vietnamese spiritual culture amid rapid Western influencePrinted as albumen silver prints glass negatives—a pioneering 19th-century technique—these small-scale images (17 x 10.9 cm) show...
About the Artist
Emile Gsell · 1838–1879
Emile Gsell (1838–1879) was a French photographer who became one of the earliest Western photographers to document Southeast Asia, particularly the ancient temples of Angkor in Cambodia. Born in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in Alsace, France, Gsell traveled to Indochina in the 1860s, establishing a photographic studio in Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) that became a base for his documentary expedi...