Writer, navy doctor, art critic and archaeologist, Victor Segalen (1878-1919) is one of the most singular personalities of French literary and intellectual circles in the early 20th century. His multiple journeys in foreign countries throughout his career nurtured his literary and scholarly research. Two countries particularly fascinated him: Polynesia and China, which prompted him to create a poetry collection (Stèles), a novel (René Leys) and essays on statuary.
The photographs shown above – held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France thanks to Annie Joly-Segalen’s donation in 1998, Segalen’s daughter – were taken during the archaeological missions led by Segalen and his friend Auguste Gilbert de Voisins (1877-1939). They successively travelled across Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces in 1914, then Jiangsu in 1917, in search of monuments from the Han (206 BC-AD 220), Tang (618-907) and intermediate dynasties.
