Abstract
The French diplomat, archaeologist and explorer Charles-Eudes Bonin (1865–1929) led two expeditions in China and Central Asia in the 1890s. He was the first French person to visit Dunhuang. Bonin has been described as one of the most knowledgeable French travellers and explorers in China and Central Asia at the beginning of the twentieth century, and as having made one of the longest and boldest journeys of the nineteenth century (Broc, 1998: 37), so why has he remained a comparatively obscure figure? Is it because he wrote only a few short articles (Bonin refs), or because he did not collect antiquities? Or are there other reasons why he is not better known? In this paper, I shall refer to Bonin’s archives and photographs to introduce him (a longer biography is available in French, see Malsagne 2015), summarise his expedition to northwestern China in 1899, discuss his relationships with his contemporaries Paul Pelliot and Sven Hedin, and show that Bonin’s contribution deserves to be better known.