Vue de Saïgon (Feuille No. 3)
1866
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
24.7 x 33.7 cm (9 3/4 x 13 1/4 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 (25)
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Vue de Saïgon (Feuille No. 3)**, captured by pioneering photographer Émile Gsell in 6, offers a captivating glimpse into colonial Saigon shortly after its French conquest. Part of an early photographic album (this being Sheet No. 3), the image likely depicts the bustling Saigon River lined with ships, highlighting the port's vital role as a hub for trade and colonial expansion in Cochinchina—modern-day southern Vietnam. Gsell, a French photographer who arrived in Saigon that year, became the region's first official documentarian, using his lens to record architecture, daily life, and landsca...
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...