Henri Dufour (19 Sept. 1870, Nancy, France — 1 Jan. 1939, Nancy) was a French architect, visual artist and explorer who was one of the first Western experts to study the Bayon monument at the turn of the 20th century alongside Charles Carpeaux, Henri Parmentier and Jean Commaille.
At Nancy (Eastern France) Ecole des Beaux Arts, he studied descriptive geometry, stereotomy and decorative drawing, and received his architecture diploma on 16 Dec. 1898 (with his studies on Une station forestière dans les Vosges). He was a professional architect in Paris until 1900, when he was appointed Inspector of Civil Construction for Cambodia on 6 Oct. 1900. On 24 Sept. 1901, the governor-general of Indochina officially assigned him to Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient for a mission at Bayon Temple. His friend Charles Carpeaux and young archaeologist Henri Parmentier joined in the Mission Dufour (1901−1902), the very first one led in Angkor under EFEO tutelage.
Before that mission, the Bayon had only been sketched six years earlier by Albert Tissandier in his Cambodge et Java: ruines khmeres et javanaises 1893 – 1894. An additional exploration was led by Dufour in 1904, during which Charles Carpeaux, already ill, had to be evacuated to Saigon, where he died. Completed in 1904, the findings of the scientific campaigns completed were published in 1913, with an archaeological record penned by Jean Commaille, who had become the first Angkor Conservator in 1908, an archaeological descriptive by George Coedès and and an introduction by Auguste Barth.
Henri Dufour, usually known as Monsieur Dufour in Cambodia, had impressive social connections in Phnom Penh. To our knowledge, he was the first visitor (in May 1901) to be granted permission to photograph a ceremony inside the Royal Palace: the sakant chuk, “auspicious cut of the tuft of hair” — Cambodian version of the Keshānta (केशान्त) codified in Brahmanic law — for Prince Chandalekha, a son of King Norodom, at his 13th birthday. His photographs, illustrating a documented article by Adhémard Leclère, were printed in the first issue of the EFEO Bulletin [BEFEO I‑3, 1901, pp 208 – 230 (text) and 231 – 243 (photographs)], the first ‘photo feature’ to grace the distinguished publication.
In the same issue [BEFEO I‑4, Oct. 1901, p 409], Dufour was mentioned as follows:
Notre collaborateur, M. H. Dufour, a fait don au Musée de 24 cachets cambodgiens en bois et un en ivoire : il a également réuni un grand nombre d’empreintes de ces cachets, qui sont d’une exécution extrêmement artistique et sur lesquels il prépare une étude. Par son intermédiaire, M. Thouvenin a ajouté à notre collection dix-huit autres cachets du même genre, provenant de la résidence de Soai-Rieng.
[Our collaborator, Mr. H. Dufour, donated to the Museum 24 Cambodian wooden seals and one ivory seal: he also collected a large number of prints of these seals, which are artistically realized and on which he is preparing a study. Through him, Mr. Thouvenin added to our collection eighteen other seals of the same type, coming from the residence of Soai-Rieng [Svay Rieng ក្រុងស្វាយរៀង].]
The short-lived EFEO Musem in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) mentioned here had been founded in 1900 in a building on 140 rue Pelletier (Pasteur), separately from the small “Musée d’Études” established by the Société des Études Indochinoises (Society of Indochina Studies) in the building of the Missions Etrangères de Paris (MEP), 16 Rue de La Grandière (Lý Tự Trọng). The Saigon EFEO museum hosted Cham and Cambodian artifactsthe until 1905, when its collection was dispatched to the new Louis Finot Museum in Hanoi, or sent to Phnom Penh, to be added to the future ‘Albert Sarraut Museum’ (now National Museum of Cambodia). [see Tim Doling, ‘Saigon Earliest Museums’, Historic Vietnam blog, 2014].
1) “Le Bayon à Angkor Thom”, etching by Henri Dufour autographed to Eugène Corbin (1867−1952), [source: Catalogue Lynda Trouvé]. 2) A portrait of Henri Dufour in later years [Agorah/INHA]. 3) “Henri Dufour in Indochina” on a rickshaw and smoking a cigar “in 1908, photo by Leopold Poiré [source Image’Est/Francine Charmont].
1) “Le Bayon à Angkor Thom”, etching by Henri Dufour autographed to Eugène Corbin (1867−1952), [source: Catalogue Lynda Trouvé]. 2) A portrait of Henri Dufour in later years [Agorah/INHA]. 3) “Henri Dufour in Indochina” on a rickshaw and smoking a cigar “in 1908, photo by Leopold Poiré [source Image’Est/Francine Charmont].
1) “Le Bayon à Angkor Thom”, etching by Henri Dufour autographed to Eugène Corbin (1867−1952), [source: Catalogue Lynda Trouvé]. 2) A portrait of Henri Dufour in later years [Agorah/INHA]. 3) “Henri Dufour in Indochina” on a rickshaw and smoking a cigar “in 1908, photo by Leopold Poiré [source Image’Est/Francine Charmont].
1) “Le Bayon à Angkor Thom”, etching by Henri Dufour autographed to Eugène Corbin (1867−1952), [source: Catalogue Lynda Trouvé]. 2) A portrait of Henri Dufour in later years [Agorah/INHA]. 3) “Henri Dufour in Indochina” on a rickshaw and smoking a cigar “in 1908, photo by Leopold Poiré [source Image’Est/Francine Charmont].
According to Marie-Laure Crosnier (INHA website), Henri Dufour exhibited his artworks at the Salon des artistes français (Paris) in 1896 [Le vase de la salle des Deux-Sœurs, Alhambra; La Giralda, Séville], 1898 [Un coin du Mirhab, grande mosquée de Kairouan (Tunisie); Arcades du souk des Etoffes à Tunis] 1899 [Un patio de Sidi-Gahab, près de Kairouan (Tunisie)] 1900 [Carrefour de la rue des Andalous à Tunis ; Intérieur de la “Torre de la Cautiva”, à Grenade, aquarelle] and 1903 [Angkor-Vat, angle sud-ouest de la deuxième enceinte]. He also authored several watercolors and etchings depicting the Bayon towers. Henri was also at the Salon des artistes lorrains, 1902, where he exhibited “le résultat d’un voyage d’études en Extrême-Orient, son pinceau évoquant les ruines de civilisations mortes, la beauté de cieux inconnus.” (L’Est republicain, 12 Nov. 1902), in particular a remarked ‘Vue de la Terrasse du Roi Lépreux, Angkor’.
In 1908, Dufour put forward with sculptor Alfred Finot the project of a ‘Monument to Cambodia’, a triangular pyramid with six dragons at each angle spitting water in a large basin’, made of ‘pink sandstone shipped from the quarries of Angkor’ and bronze ornaments: a lotus flower on one side, on the other à bas-relief depicting Daniel Fabre’s works in Cambodia (L’Éclair de l’Est, 24 Feb. 1908, n. 814). Daniel Fabre (25 Dec. 1850, Les Vans, France — 8 Sept. 1904, at sea during his return journey from Saigon to France) was the chief-architect of Public Works in Indochina and the town planner who, alongside engineer Félix Faraut, designed Phnom Penh ‘European Quarter’ in the 1880 and 1890s, designing numerous buildings, in particular Phnom Penh Post Office, the renovation of Wat Phnom main pagoda, and the Pavillon du Cambodge at the 1889 Exposition universelle.
Henri Dufour worked as an architect in Paris (14th district) at least until 1932. He was listed as a member of the Société centrale d’horticulture de Nancy in 1935. He died in Nancy on 1 January 1939 [mentioned as ‘Francois Henri Dufour, architecte, residant 10, rue Isabey, Nancy’.]
For the last photograph concluding his series on Prince Chandaleka’s coming-to-age ceremony, Henri Dufour noted that the Palace’s women returning to the private quarters were led by the ‘prima ballerina’ of the King’s corps de ballet, Nou-Nam, aged 17.
Caption photo 10, full-text: “10. — Les femmes de la suite du prince le quittent à l’entrée du Phnom Kailash où il se rend pour recevoir les aspersions et rentrent dans les enceintes privées. La première est Nou-Nam, âgée de dix-sept ans, première danseuse du roi. C’est la Mayurichatt. Elle porte le petit parasol (chatt) de forme bulbeuse et recouvert complètement de plumes de paon (mayura). La porteuse du sabre et celle du grand écran ont la tête ornée d’un magnifique diadème rayonnant, le kbang-na.” [The women in the prince’s retinue leave him at the entrance to Phnom Kailash, where he goes to receive the aspersions, and return to the private enclosures. The first among them is Nou-Nam, aged seventeen, the king’s first dancer. She is the Mayurichatt: she carries the small bulbous parasol (chatt) entirely covered with peacock (mayura) feathers. The bearer of the sword and the one holding large screen have their heads adorned with a magnificent radiating diadem, the kbang-na.” [BEFEO 1 – 2, 1901, p 243]
For the last photograph concluding his series on Prince Chandaleka’s coming-to-age ceremony, Henri Dufour noted that the Palace’s women returning to the private quarters were led by the ‘prima ballerina’ of the King’s corps de ballet, Nou-Nam, aged 17.
Caption photo 10, full-text: “10. — Les femmes de la suite du prince le quittent à l’entrée du Phnom Kailash où il se rend pour recevoir les aspersions et rentrent dans les enceintes privées. La première est Nou-Nam, âgée de dix-sept ans, première danseuse du roi. C’est la Mayurichatt. Elle porte le petit parasol (chatt) de forme bulbeuse et recouvert complètement de plumes de paon (mayura). La porteuse du sabre et celle du grand écran ont la tête ornée d’un magnifique diadème rayonnant, le kbang-na.” [The women in the prince’s retinue leave him at the entrance to Phnom Kailash, where he goes to receive the aspersions, and return to the private enclosures. The first among them is Nou-Nam, aged seventeen, the king’s first dancer. She is the Mayurichatt: she carries the small bulbous parasol (chatt) entirely covered with peacock (mayura) feathers. The bearer of the sword and the one holding large screen have their heads adorned with a magnificent radiating diadem, the kbang-na.” [BEFEO 1 – 2, 1901, p 243]
