André Salles

Firmin André Salles (5 Sept. 1860, Tarbes — 2 Feb. 1929, Paris) was a French Navy officer,colonial administrator, explorer and prolific photographer who captured daily life scenes in Annam, Cochinchina, Tonkin and Cambodia from 1896 to 1898. Later on, he lived and worked in the French Indies.

As a French Navy purser, he joined in 1882 Admiral Courbet in the Formosa [Taiwan] and Pescadores Islands naval operations during the Sino-French War (1884−1885), starting to use his camera then. Amédée Courbet (26 June 1827, Abbeville, France-11 June 1885, Makung, Penghu Islands, Qing Empire) was killed during this quite obscure page in the history of French colonization.

Lexpedition francaise de Formose 1884 1885 courbet — Funeral service for Admiral Courbet in Kelung (Formosa), 1885, etching from a photography taken by another naval officer and photographer, Capt. Goez. [from EG Garnot’s account published in 1894).

After serving in the Mediterranea, visiting Lebanon and Turkey, he was appointed “Inspector of the Colonies” based in Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh Ville] in 1894. Then, and until 1898, he documented French Indochina — except Laos -, leaving hundred of negative plates now kept at the Société de géographie de Paris. He captured markets, farming activities, religious events, monuments, and also scenes of the life of the colonials in French Indochina.

Salles particularly focused on the daily life along Cai Quan Road, or National Highway 1 — the artery connecting the North and South -, the longest (1,730 km) and oldest road in Vietnam. Nicknamed “Route mandarine” (Mandarin Road) by the French, it was to inspire the title of Roland Dorgelès’ novel, Sur la route mandarine (Paris, 1926, ENG On the Mandarin Road, New York, 1926). In Cambodia, he captured market life, fishing and farming activities, in particular around the Tonle Sap Lake (“Great Lake”).

After working in the Antilles in 1898 – 9 and 1900 – 4, he went back to French Indochina to take more photographs in 1904 and 1905 while he was on leave. As inspector-general of the colonies, he traveled in Africa and Oceania.

Cambodge Phnom Penh promenade a elephant salles Andre 2jan1896 — As inspector-general of the French colonies, Salles moved around Cambodia in the 1890s. Here, on 2 January 1896, a tour on elephant on the road to Kampot from Phnom Penh *(source:gallica.bnf.fr)*

A member of Académie des sciences coloniales and Société de Géographie de Paris since 1881, Salles pursued his research on Far Eastern history and archaeology after World War II, and Henri Cordier acknowledged his contribution in his monumental Biblioteca Sinica (3 volumes from 1924). He devoted a detailed study on the life of Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau, a close collaborator of Pigneau de Behaine, “high mandarin and first consul of France to Cochinchina,” signing his 1923 publication as “retired inspector of the colonies.” He spent days at the Catholic Church archives in Rome to collect information about South East Asia, in particular Cochinchina.

Cambodge Phnom Penh promenade a elephant — Salles carefully labeled his negative plates and positive prints. For this one, he wrote at the back: “Cambodge ‑Phnom Penh — promenade à éléphant (Mad. Picard, femme d’un capitaine d’inf. de marine, M. Verrier, inspecteur g[énéral]”, 2 jan. 1896, A.S., positif Molteni”. [Stroll on Elephant (Madame Picard, wife of a navy infantry captain, M. Verrier, general inspector, Molteni positive.] Molteni was a photo lab specialized in converting negative plates in plates fit for screening during conferences. Under Alfred Molteni, his grandfather Antoine and his uncle Jules, the lab was in activity from 1841 to 1892, later registered under the name Massiot. (*source gallica.bnf.fr)*

Publications and Notes

“A bord de l’Éclaireur en escadre de l’Extrême-Orient”, Annales C.A.F., 1885, p. 298 – 335.
4 files containing 1,114 index cards related to Indochina between 1643 and 1820 from the Archives of “Propaganda Fide”, Rome, 1922 [kept at Bibliotheque Nationale de France BNF]
Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau et sa famille, Hanoi-Haiphong : Impr. d’Extrême-Orient , 1923; Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué, Jan-March 1923; Rennes, les Portes du large, 2006.

About the Sino-French War

Eugène Germain Garnot, L’expédition francaise de Formose 1884 – 1885, Paris, Charles Delagrave, 1894.
Huang Ching Jen, Carapatteur: A Study of André Salles’ Photographs during the Sino-French War (1884−85), 臺灣國立師範大學臺灣史研究所碩士論文, 2022.
An exhibition about the conflict and featuring André Salles’ photograph was held at Taiwan’s National Museum of History, Tainan City, 2024.

Salles and modern Vietnam

A large selection of Salles’ photographs of Annam, Tonkin and Cochinchina have been posted in high definition on RedsVN blog, “Việt Nam cuối thế kỷ 19 trong ảnh của Firmin André Salles”. Enlarged and retouched, they had been shown in the Paris exhibition “France — Vietnam: Four decades of relations — Role of pioneer photographers in Vietnam” (May 2014), and featured alongside works by Emile Gsell, Gustave Ernest, Trumelet-Faber, Charles-Edouard Hocquard, Aurélien Pestel and Pierre Dieulefils.