Sent to South East Asia as an enlisted private in the Foreign Legion (‘Légion Étrangere’), Jean Narcisse Commaille (24 June 1868, Marseille — 30 Apr. 1916, Siem Reap) became the First Conservateur (Curator) of Angkor Wat in July 1908 after joining the EFEO as a mere secretary-accountant eight years earlier.
EFEO archaeologist Henri Parmentier alluded in his obituary to Commaille’s “vie des plus mouvementées” [“most turbulent life”] prior to becoming a member of the School, when he helped in the opening of the first EFEO museum in Saigon before completing his first archaeological assignment in the Bassac ruins (Svay Rieng district, in 1901 – 1902) and organizing the EFEO pavilion at 1902 World Exhibition in Hanoi. Added Parmentier: “Malheureusement de cruels embarras d’argent auxquels ses tendances fastueuses devaient fatalement l’acculer, l’obligèrent à quitter l’Ecole pour se mettre en quête d’une occupation plus lucrative. Il la trouva, très conforme encore à ses goûts, dans la direction de l’imprimerie Schneider, dont le chef partait en France prendre quelque repos. Au retour de celui-ci, Commaille né tarda pas à rentrer dans les Services civils, et c’est là qu’en 1907 […] l’Ecole put venir le chercher de nouveau pour lui confier le poste de conservateur du groupe d’Ankor qui, malgré de rudes fatigues et un pénible isolement, lui offrait l’idéal même de vie qu il rêvait.” [“Unfortunately, the cruel financial strain which his ostentatious tendencies would inevitably impose on him, forced him to leave the School and seek a more lucrative occupation. He found one, still very much in line with his tastes, in the management of the Schneider printing house, whose head was going to France to take some rest. Upon his return, Commaille wasted no time in joining the Civil Services, and it was there that in 1907 […] the School was able to seek him out again to entrust him with the position of curator of the Ankor group which, despite severe fatigue and painful isolation, offered him the very ideal of life he dreamed of.” [Henri Parmentier, “Jean Commaille (1868−1916)”, BEFEO 16, 1916: 105 – 107 (via persee.fr)]
In September 1909, Commaille had the honor to welcome King Sisowath at Angkor during the Cambodian sovereign’s first visit to the Siem Reap since the retrocession of the provinces seized by Siam under the 1907 French-Siamese Treaty. The governor-general of Indochina Anthony Klobukowski and General de Beylié attended the festivity, a weeklong affair which was to inspire the famous Khmer poem Niras Nokor Wat. As the French colonial authorities started to see the touristic potential of the place, Commaille was commissionned to write the very first Guide d’Angkor (printed in Hanoi in 1912), while working hard on Angkor Wat, Bayon, the Royal Terraces, Preah Pithu, Baphuon and Prasat Suor Prat site clearing and excavations — often with logistical help from Lunet de la Jonquière. In Angkor and particularly at Bayon, he worked with Henri Parmentier, George Coedès, Charles Carpeaux and Henri Dufour.
Leading a humble life close to the archeological sites — his wooden house had been erected right at the entrance of Angkor Wat causeway -, Jean Commaille left administrative and scientific reports, as well as a vast collection of his own paintings, watercolors and sketches. The original artworks were deposited in the EFEO collection, Paris. [cf. Nadine André-Pallois, “Un « peintre du dimanche » à Angkor : Jean Commaille”, Arts Asiatiques 47, 1992: 29 – 39.]
Married in Hanoï in 1904 to Henriette Julie Loustalet (22 Feb. 1882, Bidarray — 4 Aug. 1970, Pau, France), his almost ascetic life amongst Khmer ruins did not agree with the then young Henriette (26 years old at the time), who decided to travel back to France — after her piano fell through the vetust hardwood floor of their house, according to some urban legend –, and remarried in 1920 in Marseille.
Jean Commaille was murdered on a dirt track in Angkor Thom while carrying his workers’ payroll, on 29 April 1916. His grave is still located near the Bayon. A few weeks earlier, he had expressed his desire to retire and incurred Louis Finot’s wrath for attempting to find his successor (Felix Cardi, a friend whom EFEO never vetted) without going through the proper channels. At the time, he was also feverishly corresponding with famous French architect Auguste Delaval, whom he knew since the latter had drawn the blueprints for Musée Blanchard de la Brosse in Saigon, regarding the reconstruction sketches of the Angkor Wat towers planned for the Marseille Exposition Nationale Coloniale, scheduled for the year 1916 but postponed until 1922, as expounded by Michael Falser in Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage [Vol 1: Angkor in France. From Plaster Casts to Exhibition Pavilions, De Gruyter, 2020].
Self-taught, unpredictable with a marked artistic streak, he was one of the last specimen of what Pierre Singaravelou called “the amateur Orientalist” in his history of the School. Nevertheless, his empirical response to archaeological challenges has often led to further discoveries. For instance, he found useful to have thousands of stone blocks scattered around the Bayon piled up in numerous separate heaps around the monument; ten decades later, researcher Olivier Cunin, perusing through these “tas Commaille” (Commaille Heaps), was able to demonstrate that there were originally at least eleven more face towers than those still standing. [see Michael Vickery, “Bayon: New Perspectives Reconsidered”, UDAYA 7, p 163.]
