Lot Essay
These portraits were taken in Paris in 1863 by Philippe-Jacques Potteau, official photographer for the Musée d'Histoire Natural, after the signing of the Treaty of Saigon in 1862. This group, together with the eight photographs in the following lot show frontal and profile studies of each subject. This group of prints is the most complete known. The negatives for the complete set of seventy-one portrait studies are in the collection of the Musée de l'Homme in France.
The portraits in this lot include the three Cochinchinese ambassadors and approx. twenty-eight of their sixty-six officials who were sent to France by Emperor Tu Duc in 1863 to negotiate the recovery of the three provinces usurped to the French at the time of the Treaty. Phan Thanh Gian (illus.), the Premier Ambassadeur and Vice-Grand-Censor of the Annam kingdom was a prime player in the negotiations leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Saigon on 5th June 1862 and it is thought that his conservatism and strict adherence to the political and ethical tenets of Confucianism may have contributed to the French conquest of Vietnam.
A list of titles is available on request.
The portraits in this lot include the three Cochinchinese ambassadors and approx. twenty-eight of their sixty-six officials who were sent to France by Emperor Tu Duc in 1863 to negotiate the recovery of the three provinces usurped to the French at the time of the Treaty. Phan Thanh Gian (illus.), the Premier Ambassadeur and Vice-Grand-Censor of the Annam kingdom was a prime player in the negotiations leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Saigon on 5th June 1862 and it is thought that his conservatism and strict adherence to the political and ethical tenets of Confucianism may have contributed to the French conquest of Vietnam.
A list of titles is available on request.