DIEULEFILS Pierre (EN)
Education and Early Success
Pierre Dieulefils was born in Malestroit (Morbihan) in 1862, as the youngest in a family of five children. His father, a merchant in the village, died when he was five years old. After an uneventful schooling, he worked in a haberdashery for some time, but this job did not satisfy his need for action and adventure, so he joined the army in 1883. One year after his incorporation into the 24th artillery regiment in Vannes, he was appointed brigadier quartermaster. In 1885, he volunteered to go to Tonkin in the expeditionary force responsible for ensuring the country’s "pacification", and thus became both an actor in and a witness to the French colonial enterprise in the north of what is now Vietnam. (Fontbrune L. de, 2015, p. 246). With the Treaty of Tien-Tsin, signed in 1885, China recognised the French protectorate over Annam and Tonkin, but internal resistance to the occupier remained strong, even though France pretended to deny this resistance, likening it to the abuses of "pirates" and "black flags”. During his participation in the siege of Ba Dinh (Fontbrune L. de, 2015, p. 246) in 1887, Dieulefils took his first photographs and began to nurture his passion for this art. He was then appointed to the rank of chief sergeant (Vincent T., 1997, p. 24). When he returned to Malestroit on releasable leave the same year, he became engaged to a neighbour, Marie Glais (ca 1864-1955), but at the time the army still exercised marital control: non-commissioned officers were only permitted to marry if their future wife had a sufficient dowry or income. As this was not the case for Marie, who came from a modest background, Dieulefils chose to end his military career (Vincent T., 1997, p. 29).
He nevertheless returned to Tonkin: this region fascinated him and, in the context of French colonial expansion in Southeast Asia, offered great chances for rapid success to enterprising personalities. He moved to Hanoi, which at that time was experiencing spectacular transformations, and opened a photography shop in 1888 (Ghesquière, J., 2016, p. 46; Vincent, T., 1997, p. 32). The practice of photography was already present in Indochina, as we see from the examples of Clément Gillet (1862-1887) and Émile Gsell (1838-1879) who were active in Saigon from 1866 to 1879, or the military doctor Charles-Édouard Hocquard (1853-1911), whose photographs dated 1884-1885 were marketed in portfolio form by publisher Henri Cremnitz. The first exhibition in Hanoi in 1887 already presented photos of Asia, and some dealers provided related products, albums of reproductions, and stereoscopic views (Vincent T., 1997, p. 26-27). Dang Huy Tru (nc-1874), a dignitary of the Court of Annam, kept a photographic studio in Hanoi between 1869 and 1874 whose signpost Cam Hieu Duong lab ("Establishment for arousing piety") clearly indicated its purpose of helping to facilitate ancestor worship. But Dieulefils appears to be the first professional photographer of European origin to have establish himself in Tonkin. His activity was at once that of an operator of image making, traveling throughout the country taking pictures; that of a studio technician, ensuring the development of negatives and the printing of positive prints; and that of a retail dealer, offering a wide choice of items such as negative plates, photographic paper, products, devices and materials.
In 1889, at the Exposition universelle in Paris, Dieulefils was already able to show a significant selection of his photographs: the major cities of Tonkin, civic or religious buildings, ethnic types, and local industries. He won a bronze medal. The same year, he took advantage of his stay in France to marry his fiancée, who had remained in Malestroit, and returned with her to Tonkin. They would go on to have several children (Vincent T., 1997, p. 32-33).
After an unfortunate experience moving into rue de la Citadelle, he moved to 53, rue Jules-Ferry, an address that would house his store, workshop and private residence. The comfortable life that he led with his family in his home, which included a garden, accommodations for servants and a stable, , served as a sign of his success (Vincent T., 1997, p. 36). But things were still precarious; he had to fight against growing competition and went looking for new business opportunities. In 1895-1896, he was awarded by public contract the mission of photographing all non-Annamite Asians residing in Tonkin, who were required by new regulations to associate a photograph of identity with their residence permit. To fulfill this mission, he traversed the country from city to city, taking advantage of these expeditions to gather new stocks of images wherever he went (Vincent T., 1997, p. 38-39). Carrying heavy and fragile equipment on impractical roads, Dieulefils had to cross certain dangerous areas where looters were rampant. His former military experience helped him greatly in travelling under these difficult conditions, which required the physical endurance and resources of an adventurer.
His income from photography was still insufficient, so he launched new projects on the side; some were risky, such as the purchase of a customs transport boat that turned out to be unseaworthy. He made a long visit to France with his family starting in 1898 and set up a cider house in his native village. At the same time, he presented photos at the Exposition universelle in Paris in 1900 (Vincent T., 1997, p. 41-42).
In 1902, he was back in Tonkin at the time of the Hanoi International Exhibition, an ambitious event planned by Paul Doumer (1857-1932), the Governor General of Indochina from 1897 to 1902. He and Dieulefils maintained good relations. The objective of the Exhibition, as triumphantly announced by the official catalog (La Jalerie [de], B., 1902), was to "reveal to the world the immense progress made by France in Indochina […], the industrial and commercial development of this admirable colony". Dieulefils's artistic approach was part of this program to enhance the French presence in Southeast Asia. He appears twice in the catalog: in class 3, with the mention "photographic albums", which would be rewarded with a gold medal, and in class 11, as a producer of “champagned cider", which earned him silver.
The Postcard: A Lifeline
1902 was a pivotal year for Dieulefils. Through the publication of postcards, he finally found a way to distribute his photographs widely and to draw regular and sustainable income from them. The years from 1900 to 1920 were the golden age of the postcard, which constituted an authentic medium and a popular, inexpensive means of disseminating images at a time when press photography was poor or non-existent (Steiner A., 2015). In Tonkin, where Dieulefils worked, the illustrated postcard responded to a real need: the soldiers of the colonial troops, like the ever-increasing number of civilians in a rapidly expanding Indochina, were fond of these small aids in correspondence in a standardised format, which simplified communicating with family in France and showed the most characteristic aspects of a country so difficult to describe in words.
Dieulefils' cartophile work, which reflected his photographic work, illustrates the same themes: scenes and "types", crafts, customs, cities, remarkable monuments, military life, landscapes. A study by Thierry Vincent (Vincent T., 1997) identifies more than 4,800 references in this production, which he arranges in three series. The first (1902-1904), with a black caption and undivided spine, is a jumble of images on the three regions of ancient Vietnam. The second (1904-1914), more accomplished, began when the Universal Postal Union decided to authorise correspondence on the back of cards, which had previously been reserved for the address. Each of these, captioned in red or black, is stamped with a motif representing an incense burner on its base. With this characteristic sign, Dieulefils clearly sought to establish himself as a "brand". This series constitutes a sort of idealised reportage in still images across Tonkin (Hanoi, Haiphong, Halong Bay, Doson), Annam (Hué), Cochinchina (Saigon), Cambodia, but also grants some space to China (Beijing and Yunnan). A subset of this series deserves special attention: about sixty shots of military operations conducted in 1908-1909 against the Dé-Tham, one of the main leaders of the insurrection against the French presence. The captions to these images almost naively convey the perspective of the colonial authorities: the rebel leader's soldiers are referred to as a "group of pirates from the bands of De Tham", while one of his right-hand men is labeled as a "fierce lieutenant of De Tham".
In this subset, some famous postcards show the decapitated heads of "pirates", a theme highly prized by enthusiasts of morbid exoticism, and which was exploited by some of Dieulefils’s contemporaries, such as colonial infantry lieutenant Edgard Imbert (1872-1915). The author of the original photos on the De Tham and piracy was Captain Péri, as Dieulefils stated unambiguously in an advertisement for his business (Vincent T., 1997, p. 242), but other, older images of executions of pirates can be attributed to Jean-Marie Le Priol (1865-nc), a photographer with whom he was once associated (Degroise M.-H.). In any case, it is clear that Dieulefils had recourse to the shots of some other practitioners, amateurs or professionals (Vincent T., 1997, p. 243-245), such as those made by Commander Fritch in China, or those pictures who he made use of together with the publisher Poujade de Ladevèze, to complement his corpus of images intended for printing postcards — which renders this corpus at once a single work and a collection. As for the third series (1915 – end of the 1920s), with a black legend and a green back, it generally takes up the same subjects, with a few modifications and additions, including a series of views of Saigon.
In his store, Dieulefils sold "bromide photographs", i.e. silver prints, as well as black and white or watercolour postcards. He deposited part of his production at various sale points in Saigon, Paris, London and New York, an indicator as well as a result of his growing reputation (MPP, 80/074/55). He published a catalog (MPP, 80/074/55) stating that "any purchaser of 100 cards will receive the album to hold them and the printed catalog free of charge". The album allowed each customer to make selections from the catalog in order to compose their own novel in images of life in Indochina. While Dieulefils was not the only publisher of postcards in Indochina in the first quarter of the 20th century, he was the most fruitful, and his production has all the characteristics of an inventory of local reality, as if he had wanted write a chapter of this implicit enterprise of "cataloguing the world" which, from the Belle Époque until the interwar period, inspired many travellers-explorers-photographers, and aroused the enthusiasm of collectors.
International Exhibitions: Showcases of Colonial Achievements
Throughout his career, Dieulefils would remain aware of the need to constantly renew his supply of images in order to keep up with the competition. This concern led him in 1905 to lead a photographic campaign in Cambodia, from Phnom Penh to the site of Angkor. The set of photographs he took during this expedition, and which he published in 1909 as the album L’Indo-Chine pittoresque et monumentale : Annam-Tonkin represent the peak of his photographic work. In 1906, he moved his studio once again to 42-44 Paul-Bert Street, the busiest shopping street in the European district of Hanoi. The same year, he participated in the Exposition coloniale in Marseille, where he won a gold medal for the postcards he presented at the Cambodian pavilion. The harvest of awards continued with the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition in London, where he also won a gold medal (Vincent T., 1997, p. 55).
His album on Angkor, which he previewed there, caused a sensation. Always on the go, Dieulefils set out again in 1909 to hunt for pictures to fuel his second album, L'Indo-Chine picturesque et monumentale : Annam-Tonkin, which appeared the same year. The preface to this album describes Dieulefils as "a skilful populariser of Indo-China through images", and judges that, through this publication, he "has done the work of a good patriot. The last major event in which he participated was the Universal Exhibition in Brussels in 1910, where the public discovered his photos of Annam and Tonkin in a section with the evocative name: "Procédés de colonisation". Here again, his work received a gold medal (Vincent T., 1997, p. 63).
The Last Years
Following the success of postcards and albums, Dieulefils focused on publishing. He published a book on Cochinchina and a guide to the ruins of Angkor (Vincent T., 1997, p. 58). In1913, he settled his family in France, and returned regularly to Tonkin, but when war was declared in 1914, he gave his store in Hanoi to the printer Charron (Vincent T., 1997, p. 61).
Around 1894-1896, Dieulefils had been connected with Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934), then a member of the general staff of the occupying corps in Tonkin. An amateur photographer, he brought his negatives to Dieulefils and profited from his advice (Vincent T., 1997, p. 47). The presence of Lyautey in Morocco, where he then held the position of Resident General, encouraged Dieulefils to visit the country around 1914-1915. He traveled to the main towns, whence he brought back a set of photographs that would become the source of his album Maroc occidental : Fez-Meknes, published in 1916 by a publishing house he had just bought in Paris, rue Lebrun. He envisioned other works on Morocco, which would not however come to fruition.
One of his sons, Pierre, was killed at the Chemin des Dames in 1917, and his daughter Marguerite-Marie died of the Spanish flu in 1921. He returned to Tonkin after the war, and sold his postcard publishing business to A. Levray around 1919-1920, (MPP, 84/074/55; Vincent T, 1997) while retaining all or part of his collection of original negatives. Levray apparently continued to carry on the postcard business until the end of the 1920s. Definitively back in Malestroit, Dieulefils published a final work under a pseudonym — a collection of poems inspired by his memories of Indochina (Yeu, P. d’, 1923) –- and died in 1937.
Dieulefils at the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie
The Dieulefils collection, kept by the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie (MPP), is a set of 265 original gelatin-bromide negatives on glass plate in various formats (13 × 18 mm, 18 × 24 mm and 24 × 30 mm) of which 43 relate to Cambodia, 58 to Vietnam, and 164 to Morocco. These come from a donation made in 1931-1932 (MPP, 80/074/55). To these negatives can be added Additionally, 28 silver prints on the ancient buildings of Cambodia and Viet Nam, are kept in theMusée des Monuments français, and the two collections of plates with winding captions that Dieulefils published in 1909, one on the ruins of Angkor, the other on Tonkin and Annam (MPP 4o8944 and 4o8945).
This is only a small part of Dieulefils' work, but it is perfectly representative of his themes and his style. It illustrates his leanings towards portraitist (the child-emperor Duy Tan [1899-1945]; DLF00186), his ethnography (women of the Cao Bang region; DLF00171, Muong water carrier; DLF00211), and landscape painting (Bay d'Along; DLF00166 to 168, Bang Giot Waterfall; DLF00222). The civil and religious buildings (Royal Palace of Hué: DLF00217, Pagoda of the Scholars; DLF00229, Tombs of famous people, Monumental Complex of Angkor; DLF00194 sq., DLF00239 sq.) occupy a privileged place there. All social classes of society are represented, from commoners (water carriers, flower sellers, sawyers) to dignitaries (mandarin on horseback and his escort). The group portraits (costumed actors, young women from the Delta working in the tobacco factory) alternate with individual portraits (dancer of the royal ballet in Phnom Penh; DLF00213), grand mandarin in court costume; DLF00262). The cultural peculiarities of a society that was at once intriguing, fascinating and disturbing are highlighted in the photo of the eunuchs of the royal palace of Hué (DLF00275), or that of the six favorites of the king of Cambodia (Sisowath; DLF00232). The frieze of Apsaras, sculpted on a door lintel at Angkor Wat (DLF00201), echoes the dancers of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia (DLF00230).
The albums on Tonkin-Annam and the ruins of Angkor (MPP 4o8944 and 4o8945), with their heliogravures of exceptional quality, reflect Dieulefils' desire for his books to have an impact beyond national borders: the editions are trilingual, the prefaces and legends appear in French, English and German. The captions of the first album were also translated into Chinese characters, and those of the second into Khmer script. The album on the ruins of Angkor was an undeniable aesthetic success. If Dieulefils was far from the first photographer to have ventured to this site – others who preceded him include the Scotsman John Thomson (1837-1921) at the beginning of the 1860s, or Émile Gsell (1838 -1879) in 1866 – the images he brought back from Khmer temples, still covered at that time with roots and giant vines, are among the most bewitching ever taken, and reflect the traveler-photographer's fascination for this “lost world”: in the middle of exuberant vegetation, the temple of Ta Keo, the four-sided towers of the Bayon, the staircases, galleries, terraces and peristyles adorned with friezes can be standing in all their mysterious nobility.
Cartography of the Work
The Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie is not the only institution that holdsDieulefils’s photographic work. It can also be found in the collections of the Musée Guimet, the Musée du Quai-Branly, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Archives nationales d’outre-mer in Aix-en-Provence, and the National Library of Vietnam in Hanoi. Furthermore, in 2016-2017 Dieulefils’s hometown Malestroit received a donation of original glass plates as well as postcard dies from one of the photographer’s granddaughters (Ouest-France, 26/09/2017). Any attempt at an exhaustive inventory of his work is challenged by its wide dispersion: isolated old prints or albums, postcards, either “well-travelled" or blank, and probably negatives on glass, remain scattered across many private collections..
Dieulefils’s Place in the History of Photography in Indochina
Widely disseminated through albums of prints and especially through postcards, Dieulefils' photos played a role in the formation of a certain French conceptionof the Far East and the propagation of certain stereotypes. Even if the scenes captured by his lens were mostly staged situations that were composed rather than captured on the spot, his professional qualities — a sense of framing, contrasts, and backgrounds, an ability to create images at once expressive and rich in detail – lend many of his shots a singular power and presence. Combining the sensibilities of an artist and an explorer with the instincts of a dealer, he produced an opus that constitutes the largest collection of photographs of Indochina from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and represents a mine of information for the ethnologist, historian, art historian, and geographer.
Related articles
Oeuvre / revue
Oeuvre / revue
Oeuvre / revue