A very special relationship with Émile Gsell

Update: March 30, 2026

Émile Gsell was the first to photograph the musicians and actresses of the Cambodian Royal Palace in Phnom Penh between 1866 and 1870. Little is known about him, but thanks to meticulous research—supported, so to speak, by his assistance from the “realm of the ancestors” and by that of his descendants—a few additional elements have enriched our understanding.

In a researcher’s career, there are sometimes beautiful stories—miracles, even! The story I (Patrick Kersalé) tell in this chapter is utterly unbelievable, and yet every fact I present is true. If I dare to publish it today (July 2020), it is because my life as a researcher has taken unexpected turns, leading to surprising methodological discoveries. Quantum physics is now beginning to explain what many once dismissed as belonging to the realm of esotericism: the past, present, and future are nothing but an illusion…

In 2016, Chapei Dang Veng is inscribed by UNESCO on the "List of Intangible Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding". In 2017, the Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) organization, through its Heritage Hub department in Siem Reap, offers me a research mission around this instrument, which I gladly accept. I then propose to work on the history, the organology and the symbolism of the chapei. Then, in 2018, CLA offered me a contract extension until 2020, which I accepted again.

Émile Gsell (December 30, 1838 at 9 am - October 16, 1879 at 3 am) was a French photographer born in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines (Haut-Rhin). He participated in several exploration missions in Southeast Asia including part of the Mekong Exploration Mission led by the frigate captain  Ernest Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier, during which he was the first to take pictures of the temple of Angkor in 1866.

Émile Gsell was the son of a canvas printer, also named Émile, and Marie Catherine Jordy, who had no profession. He was introduced to photography during his military service in Cochinchina. At that time, the conscription concerned all men between the ages of 20 and 25 for a period of 6 years. In 1858 he began his military service in Saigon where he learned photography. In 1866, Ernest Doudart de Lagrée hired him as part of the Mekong Exploration Mission. From June 24 to July 1, 1866 at 10:00 am, he left for Angkor Wat with the latter then returned to Saigon with his photographic glass plates. From this mission (to which it is appropriate to add images taken in Cochinchina), commented pictures will be published in a catalog, "Cochinchina and Cambodia", offered in 1867 by Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly to Maria Eugenia Palafox Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick de Closburn, better known as Empress Eugenie, wife of Emperor Napoleon III. This album contains forty-six images of Indochina, fourteen of which are of Angkor Wat (plus a duplicate of the "Bas-relief of the Great Gallery of the Pagoda"). It is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Gsell returned to Angkor Wat in 1871 according to his autograph graffito of Angkor Wat and the testimony of Jean Moura in his book "Le royaume du Cambodge - 1883" as well as from July 23, 1873 with Louis Delaporte. He was then part of the Brossard de Corbigny mission during his embassy in Huế in 1875. On this occasion, he visited the Marble Mountains around Tourane (Đà Nẵng). He traveled to Tonkin at the end of that same year and then returned the following year to accompany Lieutenant de Kergaradec on his voyage up the Red River, from November 1876 to January 1877. 

Émile Gsell died in Saigon on October 16, 1879. He is buried in a Saigon cemetery that has since been destroyed. O. Wegener succeeded him, obtaining and using his stock in the early 1880s, before selling it to Vidal (also known as Salin-Vidal) who marketed it until his own death on December 4th 1883.

More than 400 of his photographs are kept by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. Several national institutions and many private collectors own original prints. The Musée Guimet holds the only known negatives of Émile Gsell, donated by the Société des Amis du Musée Guimet, after a private individual had discovered them by chance on a demolition site of old Marseilles buildings in several small wooden boxes in which the negatives were kept. Among them was the famous photograph of Doudart de Lagrée and his five collaborators, including Francis Garnier and Louis Delaporte, seated on the northern stoop of the cruciform terrace of Angkor Wat.

Thanks to the genealogy site heredis online and the patience of its authors, we can learn a little more about the ancestry and collaterality of Émile Gsell. In particular, we know that his parents married in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines on April 27, 1837, his father, also named Émile, being 27 years old and his mother Marie Catherine Jordy, 21 years old. Émile Gsell fils was born eight months after this union. We also know that he had a younger brother named Charles, born October 15, 1840. 

However, we know nothing about his marriage or his direct descendants. We only find the trace of the lineage from his grandson Jean-Louis. See below.

In December 2018, while on mission in Luang Prabang, I stayed in one of the many guesthouses in the city, run by a Vietnamese family from Hanoi. In the entrance hall of the establishment, in front of me, a Frenchman married to a Vietnamese woman. He and I had not decided beforehand to choose this establishment, so we arrived there "by chance". The conversation begins when suddenly I ask him: 

- What is your name? 

- Gsell... Frédéric Gsell.

This name, whose French pronunciation I am discovering for the first time, resounds in me. The only times I had heard it pronounced was by an Australian, Nick Coffill, during his lectures on the history of photography in Cambodia, at Bambu Stage (Siem Reap). He pronounced it "djezel". However, I make the connection instantly since I was working, that very morning, on the photograph of Emile Gsell's screed player. I then ask him:

- Are you related to Émile Gsell the photographer of the 19th century?

- Yes, he is my great-great-grandfather... He was born in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines...

No doubt, by this instantaneous detail, that he was telling the truth.

There was a one in a thousand billion chance of meeting this man at this very moment. Could it have been a teleguidance by Emile Gsell himself from the afterlife? It was then that my relationship with Émile Gsell began, or at least, that I analyze as such. 

Even before I was commissioned to do research on the chapei, the instrument represented in the hands of the "Chapei player 1" had fascinated me by its elegance. So I had planned to reconstruct it according to the photograph, which I considered at the time as sufficiently detailed, for lack of anything better!

In 2014, I am leaving for Thailand, on the border of Myanmar, where there is a huge workshop of instrument making working notably for the Thai Royal Court. About sixty workers work there and produce high quality instruments. I order four copies of this chapei, but will never see the realization of this order.

My meeting with Frédéric Gsell then decided me to change my strategy and pushed me to have the instrument made in Cambodia, which makes much more sense to me because it is the best way for Khmer makers to reappropriate a know-how that has disappeared. But the making of such an instrument is complex and I would like to make it in Siem Reap where I live rather than in Phnom Penh, even if there are two screed makers there. At the beginning of 2019, I decide to have a copy of a more recent chapei made by Leng Pohy and Thean Nga who already make the Khmer harps for Sounds of Angkor. Both of them have never made such an instrument but I have confidence in their ability to adapt and surpass themselves. 

In April 2019, I meet for the umpteenth time the Russian medium Katia Kolobaeva with whom I have already worked in the framework of my research. We have an appointment at the Bread of Heart on Taphul Road in Siem Reap. I present her with the photo of the "Chapei player 1" because I want to know if the instrument was made in Cambodia or Thailand. She says to me:

- The maker was small, black, with small fingers.

- But was it made by a Khmer or a Thai, I insisted?

- By a Khmer!

Then I presented her with a photograph of the instrument from the Musée de la Musique de Paris (below). She said:

- It was made by a different person, with tapered, white fingers. But in the same workshop. There is an inscription inside... (This statement will be confirmed during my expertise of the chapei at the Musée de la Musique in Paris!).

In the Pain du Cœur store is a panel of old photographs, among which is a xylophone player whose author is none other than Émile Gsell. I then ask Katia to try to connect to Émile and get information about him. Her answer is not long in coming:

- Emile suffered before he died. He wore small round glasses (like yours!), was taller and wider than you. I see a lot of light in his personality, an intelligent man. But he didn't get the recognition he would have liked for all his work. He helps you...

These elements deserve some comments. It is known that he died from fevers contracted in Southeast Asia. He must have suffered before he left this world. There is no doubt that he was intelligent since he was hired by Ernest Doudart de Lagrée, the head of the Mekong Exploration Mission, to take photographs of the expedition. This frigate captain, a student of the École polytechnique, surrounded himself with the best elements of each discipline. The quality of Émile Gsell's photographs and the subjects captured testify to his intelligence. As for his physical stature, it can be seen in his portrait (see below).

A complementary study, based on Émile Gsell's "life path" from his date of birth, allowed me to confirm Katia Kolobaeva's mediumistic approach.

Frédéric Gsell provided Sounds of Angkor with the portrait of two of his ancestors: Pierre Gsell (1943-), his father, and Jean-Louis Gsell (1882-1972), his great-grandfather. 

On July 31, 2020, I discovered by chance (?) an autograph of Émile Gsell at Angkor Vat. I passed by dozens of times without ever paying attention. Yet Émile had chosen a strategic location to leave his mark, since it is on a pillar of the central gopura of the west entrance, nothing less than the royal entrance! According to the book "Explorations et Missions de Doudart de Lagrée" published in 1883, Gsell explored and photographed the temples under the orders of Doudart de Lagrée from June 24 to July 1, 1866 at 10:00 am.

I sought to authenticate this autograph by comparing the characters with those written on his photographs. The correlation between the capital characters of his name and the numbers of the years is perfect. I did not know until today if the numbers on the photographs had been written by him or by an assistant. I now have confirmation of this.

Under the name E.GSELL (21 cm x 4 cm) in capital letters there are three dates: 1866, 1871 and 187?:

• 1866: The 8 is difficult to read; in negative, it appears more clearly. The totality of the date was covered with a brown glue as well as all the graffiti under G.GSELL. It seems that this same material was used to glue a cornerstone during a restoration work in this gopura (central west entrance). It seems to be 1866. On the other hand, the two 6s of 66 are not made by the hand of Emile Gsell; his are more slender and the loop is narrower. The graffiti under Gsell's autograph is believed to be earlier; it was re-covered between 1866 and 1871. One can see very clearly the traces of the worker's gesture in a movement from top to bottom from the right. These are believed to have been repairs to the temple made by the Khmers before the EFEO took charge of them around 1908. 
• 1871: The sculpture conforms to the photographer's cursive script.
• 187?: The first three digits were indeed made by Gsell's hand. As for the fourth character, it is slanted, smaller, in superscript like the 1 of 1871, but does not represent a number, except for a 2 or a 3, knowing that Gsell returned in 1873. Enigma!
• Under this last date, a long graffiti (in pink) also covered with glue. It seems to be written "LY(I)Z Y GSEL", the following characters not being legible. Now we know from the Duperré's roll of 1866 to 1868 that there was a man named LUYS in the commission who spoke Tagal (now the official language of the Philippines). But at that time, Spanish was the lingua franca of that country. Also, the name LYZ is perhaps a nickname or a shortened writing of the name of this character. The letter Y would then be the Spanish translation of the English coordinating conjunction AND. The serifs of the E and L are similar to those of the completed version above. The G and S are shallower because it is more difficult to make curves than straight lines when you are not a sculptor. Thus, in 1866, Gsell (or Luys?) write with an iron point what he can and Gsell premeditates, at the time of his return in 1871, to start again the work with better adapted tools. We believe that he then found his previous graffiti, including the date 1866, already covered.
• At the bottom, the other graffiti (in blue) seems to be independent. Both LL are sans serifs. They are probably from the same period since they were covered before 1871.

A century and a half elapsed between these two shots (1873 ? - 2020). The naga balustrades were restored, some palm trees died, others grew, a wooden staircase was installed over the stone one... Émile Gsell remains alive through his work and the synchronicities!

We know from cross studies (psychological, mediumistic, "life path" from his date of birth) that Émile Gsell was looking for notoriety. One might then be surprised to find no self-portrait. We know from his "life path" that he was both seeking fame while trying to escape it, one of the many paradoxes of human nature! Dan Millman writes, in "Votre Chemin de Vie"  (Octave Éditions, 2010) p. 384 about the 26/8s (a combination of numbers obtained from Émile Gsell's date of birth): "When they are recognized, it is usually for the quality of their work. They may work hard for fame and money, but their natural idealism will continue to inspire contrary feelings about it". This deliberate staging of himself, seen from behind, in his mobile development laboratory, seems to be one manifestation of this ambivalence.

Émile Gsell emerges as a man of great inner strength, shaped first by military experience and later by photography under extreme conditions. A former soldier who became a photographer in Cochinchina, he acquired his expertise in the field, in often hostile environments, and developed remarkable technical mastery. This adaptability reveals a highly practical intelligence, a sharp sense of observation, and exceptional resilience. Physically and mentally enduring, he faced long expeditions, jungles, heat, humidity, as well as the demanding conditions of tropical studio work and photographic chemistry. He was not only an adventurer; he was also an entrepreneur who opened a commercial studio in Saigon, fully aware that his art had to sustain him. This shows business acumen and a clear understanding of the economic value of his work.

Yet his approach was far from that of a mere technician. Gsell was a meticulous observer. His photographs are striking in their neutrality: he neither exoticized nor diminished his subjects. His portraits of Khmer dignitaries, women, and monks are imbued with dignity. He documented rather than fantasized. The wet-plate photographic process required patience, rigor, and precision—calm, concentration, and almost the discipline of a watchmaker. By systematically photographing Angkor, he acted as an archivist before the term existed. He seemed aware that he was preserving a threatened heritage for History, already working with a sense of posterity and transmission.

Gsell was also a cultural mediator. His social position was ambiguous: a commoner among often noble officers, an artisan-artist photographer in a colonial world dominated by the military, a European living at the heart of Asian society. He constantly operated between worlds, which required discretion, subtlety, and the ability to navigate different social codes without alienating anyone. He does not appear driven by aggressive colonial ideology. He certainly documented the French presence, but he also gave central importance to Khmer and Vietnamese culture. More an opportunist in the positive sense than a propagandist, he seems motivated primarily by his craft, his curiosity, and the need to make a living rather than by the glory of the Empire. The social disdain he may have faced—such as that expressed by Brossard de Corbigny—likely contributed to strengthening his psychological resilience, inner pride, and a certain stoicism.

His profile nevertheless reveals inner tensions. His profession required him to step back in order to reveal others. Was he reserved and quiet, or a strong personality who preferred to speak through images rather than words? He spent many years in Asia, where he found both his vocation and his reputation. At the same time, Gsell sought recognition—as shown by his participation in the World’s Fairs—yet he never placed himself at the center. He remained the invisible author behind famous images.

Ultimately, this psychological portrait suggests that Émile Gsell was less a tormented artist than a disciplined, courageous professional, deeply curious and genuinely respectful of what he photographed. His dominant profile is that of an observer-creator: a man capable of channeling great energy and real sensitivity into a methodical body of work in which the image becomes evidence. His greatest strength was likely his ability to transform constraints—technical, social, and climatic—into creative opportunities. His hidden wound may have been his permanently inferior social status within a rigidly hierarchical society, which often left him in the shadow of the “official heroes.”

In short, if he had to be summed up in a single phrase: Émile Gsell was a man of patient action, an adventurer of reality who chose to conquer the world not with the sword or with words, but with the fragile silvered mirror of his photographic plates. A robust spirit, coupled with discreet sensitivity, he remains one of the earliest great witnesses of the years 1866–1877.

If Émile Gsell acquired a certain notoriety through the sale of his photographs in his studio in Saigon and the publication of a number of them in scientific and popular works, his name is also mentioned in the notes of the explorers he accompanied.

We have dedicated a series of short videos to Emile Gsell, here is the compilation.

> The musicians of King Norodom, by Émile Gsell 

> King Norodom's actresses, by Émile Gsell