Le Bayon d'Angkor Thom - Bas-Reliefs [The Bayon of Angkor Thom - Bas-Reliefs

Henri Dufour (19 Sept. 1870, Nancy, France — 1932 ?, 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 20^th 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 Coedes and some comments

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 13^th 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. 

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. Back to Paris, he worked as an architect in Paris (14^th district) at least until 1932.

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]

Publications

• “Documents photographiques sur les fêtes ayant accompagné la coupe solennelle des cheveux du prince Chandalekha à Phnom Penh en 1901”, BEFEO I‑3, 1901: 231 – 243.
• “Les fouilles exécutées au Bayon d’Angkor par M. Dufour”, Comptes-rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, Paris, 1906. .
• Le Bayon d’Angkor Thom: Bas-reliefs publiés par les soins de la Commission archéologique de l’Indochine d’après les documents recueillis par la mission Henri Dufour avec la collaboration de Charles Carpeaux, 6 fasc., 135 plates, Paris, Ernest Leroux/​Ministere de l’lnstruction publique et des Beaux-Arts, 1910.
• [with C. Carpeaux, J. Commaille, G Coedès, preface by A. Barth] Les ruines d’Angkor Thom; les bas-reliefs du Bayon, publiés par la Commission archéologique de l’Indochine en collaboration avec Charles Carpeaux, Paris, E. Leroux, 1913. 

The son of noted French sculptor and painter Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827−1875), Charles Carpeaux (25 Apr. 1875, Paris — 28 June 1904, Saigon) went to Angkor for two exploratory missions in 1901 and 1904, before passing away from dysentry and exhaustion.

An artist himself, he entered the Musée du Trocadéro in Paris at a young age, pursuing comparative studies in sculpture and painting, and starting a vast study on his father’s body of work. He also assisted Louis Delaporte at the Musée in cataloguing Khmer sculptures and bas-relief mouldings.

Sent to Indochina to take part to the preliminary inspections of Khmer temples by EFEO, he rapidly became Head of Technical Services of the Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient (EFEO), while operating as a photographer on digging and restoration sites, in particular for monuments dating back from the Kingdom of Champa. While the ​“Dufour Missions” - for Henri Dufour — focused on the Bayon, Carpeaux also went to Cham archeological sites with EFEO archaeologist Henri Parmentier.

In addition to his archaelogical and artistic work, he left an instructive diary-travelogue, first published in 1908 by his mother, Mme J.B. Carpeaux née Amélie Clothilde de Montfort (1847−1908), Les ruines d’Angkor, de Dong-Duong et de Myson.

Charles Carpeaux in Angkor (Photo Musée du Petit Palais, Paris)

Note: In his tender age, Charles often posed — with and without his mother, Amélie Victorine Marie Clotilde de Montfort (1847−1908) — for his father, the acclaimed sculptor and Prix de Rome (1854) Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. He is the subject of the ​“Wounded Cupid” sculpture, kept at the Lisbon Gulbenkian Museum :

Charles Carpeaux as Wounded Cupid, by Jean-Baptise Carpeaux (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon).

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.]

The Face Towers, watercolor by Jean Commaille. 

Commaille’s humble house in Angkor, with then-wife Henriette on the doorstep (Archives EFEO)

“Angkor Wat, Mai [18]99”, watercolor by Jean Commaille. 

Commaille in his working outfit, c. 1914 (photo F. Gas-Faucher)

Publications

• [“Chronique. Notes sur les fouilles de M. Commaille à Soai Rieng”, BEFEO II‑1, 1902: 108.]
• “Les ruines de Bassac (Cambodge)”, BEFEO II‑2, 1902: 260 – 267.
• [“Chronique. Note sur les travaux de MM. de Lajonquière et Commaille à Angkor”], BEFEO VII/3 – 4, 1907: 419 – 422.]
• “Le crépuscule des dieux”, La Revue indochinoise, 1908: 332 – 342.
• “Les monuments ď Angkor. I. Vue rapide sur les remparts et l’ensemble de l’ancienne ville royale. — II Le Bayon. — III. Le Baphuon. — IV. Le groupe du Phimeanakas. — V- La Terrasse dite du Roi Lépreux”, La Revue Indochinoise XIII, May 1910: 363 – 373 ; XIV [July 1910]: XV [Aug. 1910]:7 – 14; 141 – 151; XVII [Oct. 1910]: 340 – 353.
• [with H. Dufour, Ch. Carpeaux, G. Coedès] Le Bayon d’Angkor Thom. Bas-reliefs publiés par les soins de la Commission archéologique de l’Indochine d’après les documents recueillis par la mission Henri Dufour avec la collaboration de Charles Carpeaux, Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1910, 135 pl.
• “Les ruines ď Angkor (Cambodge), Conférence faite à Marseille le 18 février 1912”, Bulletin de la Société de géographie de Marseille, XXXVI, 1912: 36 – 47.
• Guide aux ruines ď Angkor, Paris, Hachette, 1912.
• Angkor, I. Angkor Vat. II. Angkor Thom, Berlin, Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, Jahrg. II, Hefti‑2, 1913 [with 44 illustrations].
• “Notes sur la décoration cambodgienne”, BEFEO XIII‑3, 1913: 1 – 38.
• [Chronique. Cambodge. Notes sur les travaux exécutés à Angkor par MM. Commaille et Parmentier], BEFEO 8÷1−2, 3 – 4, 1908: 287 – 294, 591 – 592.

Marie-Etienne-Auguste Barth (22 March 1834, Strasbourg — 15 Apr 1916, Audierne, France) was a secondary school teacher in his native Alsace (in Bouxwiller) when he started to study ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit by himself. Within less than two decades, the self-taught Indianist became one of the most respected French Orientalists, notably after the publication of his two major studies, Les religions de l’Inde (Religions of India) and Inscriptions sanscrites du Cambodge et de Champa.

Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, he was appointed to the exploratory commission for the establishment of the Mission archéologique de l’Indochine, prefiguration of the École Francaise d’Extreme-Orient, supervising one of the first major EFEO publications, Bas-reliefs du Bayon. He also became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1896.

In the obituary dedicated to ​‘this illustrious scholar’, Louis Finot reproduced the letter Auguste Barth sent to Felix Faraut regarding the latter’s interpretation and datation of some Khmer inscriptions [in his Étude sur la verification des dates des inscriptions des monuments khmers, Saigon, 1910.