DE BEERSKI, P. Jeannerat (1902-1982)

Angkor; Ruins in Cambodia

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924. 8vo. (8 3/5 x 5 1/2 inches). 304 pp. 65 illustrations reproduced from drawings by the author or phorographs.

Publisher's original cloth, spine lettering gilt

First American edition of a richly illustrated account of Angkor preserving a visual and literary record of the Cambodian ruins during the formative decades of modern archaeological conservation at the site.

In this first American edition, following the London edition, De Beerski's account combines travel narrative, architectural description, historical summary, and close visual observation, moving through the principal monuments of Angkor. The illustrations give the book much of its character, recording architectural forms, sculptural details, and partly overgrown structures with the immediacy of an artist working directly from the site. The book appeared at a significant moment in the modern study and preservation of Angkor. After Siam retroceded the province of Siem Reap to Cambodia under the French protectorate in 1907, the École française d'Extrême Orient became closely involved in the exploration, clearing, study, and conservation of the monuments. De Beerski's work belongs to this period of expanding Western archaeological and artistic interest in Khmer architecture, while its language and assumptions also reflect the colonial framework in which much Angkor scholarship and tourism of the period developed. Angkor itself represented the political, religious, and artistic achievement of the Khmer Empire from the ninth to fourteenth centuries. The complex includes Angkor Wat, the Bayon, Banteay Srei, and many other monuments, and later scholarship has placed the site at the center of Khmer art, architecture, hydraulic engineering, and regional cultural history. De Beerski's volume is especially appealing as an illustrated Angkor book made before later twentieth century restorations, conflict, looting, mass tourism, and international heritage management altered the way the site was encountered and represented.

Item #42693

Price: $375.00