Kristen Feilberg or Christen Schjellerup Feilberg (1839–1919) was an early

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

photographer who is known mainly for his images captured far beyond the borders of Denmark. From the 1860s until the 1890s, Feilberg participated in expeditions to Sumatra,

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, and Penang. In 1867, he exhibited photos at the Paris World Exposition and around 1870 he joined an expedition to the Batak lands of North Sumatra with the Dutch explorer C. de Haan from which he returned with 45 successful "photogrammes".

Early life

Kristen Feilberg was born on 26 August 1839 in Vester Vedsted near

Ribe Ribe () is a town in south-west Jutland, Denmark, with a population of 8,257 (2022). It is the seat of the Diocese of Ribe covering southwestern Jutland. Until 1 January 2007, Ribe was the seat of both a surrounding municipality and county. It ...

in the west of Jutland, Denmark. He was the son of Nikolai Laurentius Feilberg, a well-known cleric, and Conradine Antonette Caroline Købke (sister to the painter

Christen Købke Christen Schiellerup Købke (26 May 1810 – 7 February 1848) was a Danish painter, and one of the best known artists from the Golden Age of Danish Painting. Childhood and early training He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was one of 11 ...

)."Christen Schjellerup Feilberg + Emma Alice Mac-Intine", ''Alexander Jensegs slektsdatabase''
Retrieved 10 October 2010. He was trained as a photographer.

Life in the East Indies

After giving up his dream of becoming a painter, he followed his sister to Singapore in 1862 where he worked partly as a tobacco agent and partly as a photographer. In 1864, Feilberg together with August Sachtler took over the photographic studio in Singapore known as Sachtler & Co. Soon afterwards, together with E. Hermann Sachtler, he established a branch office in Penang. In 1867, Feilberg set up his own studio in Penang and, the same year, exhibited 15 views of Penang and Ceylon at the Paris World Exposition. He also produced a 10-part panoramic view of Penang taken from Edinburgh House. The earliest photographs of eastern Sumatra were taken by Feilberg in 1869. Considered to be of excellent quality, they include integrated group portraits of workers on tobacco plantations such as the one at Arendsburg. They are presented in three albums entitled "Views" at the Royal Tropical Institute. In the late 1860s or early 1870s, Feilberg made a photographic tour of Sumatra. In 1867, he was already in Deli and he returned there in 1880. In September of that year, he joined an expedition with C. de Haan who had been appointed by the Dutch East Indies government to explore the area in the interior around Lake Toba where he photographed the landscape and the Batak people, including the hierarchical princes. Photographing

Lake Toba Lake Toba ( id, Danau Toba) ( Toba Batak: ᯖᯀᯬ ᯖᯬᯅ; romanized: ''Tao Toba'') is a large natural lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, occupying the caldera of a supervolcano. The lake is located in the middle of the northern part of the i ...

was an achievement akin to the discovery of Lake Victoria in 1858. Despite numerous obstacles, Feilberg was able to record the geography of the region, a feat highly appreciated by de Haan who spoke of the beauty of the landscape. In the 1880s, he again worked as a photographer in Singapore. He also worked as a buyer for the Danish East Asiatic Company.Peter Beck, "Nikolai Laurentius Feilbergs levnedsløb og kredsen om ham : præst i Vestjylland 1834-47 og i Ullerup på Sundeved 1848-64", Herning: Poul Kristensen, 1981. - 183 pages. Some time after 1880, he spent a few years in Denmark where he also worked as a photographer. In 1890, he returned to Singapore where he worked for several photo studios. He must also have taken part in an expedition to

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

as evidenced by his photograph (above) of Dayak women from the central area of the island. Scores of Feilberg's photographs from the collection at the

Tropenmuseum The Tropenmuseum ( en, Museum of the Tropics) is an ethnographic museum located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1864. One of the largest museums in Amsterdam, the museum accommodates eight permanent exhibitions and an ongoing series of tem ...

in Amsterdam can be accessed on Wikimedia Commons as well as at the Tropenmuseum itself."Tropenmuseum", search page
. Retrieved 8 October 2010. Feilberg died in Singapore in 1919.Dirk Janse, "Het Koloniale Album als Verhaal, Beeldvorming in fotoalbums uit Sumatra, 1860-1900", Doctoral thesis University of Utrecht, Summer 2007.

Family

On 1 May 1865, Feilberg married Emma Alice Mac-Intine, a Scottish Indonesian with whom he had a daughter, Emma, in George Town, Penang. The mother died shortly after childbirth in March 1866. In 1876, he married Anna Eleonora Sophie Lassen but the marriage was not successful and she returned to Denmark. They had one child, Hjalmar, who was born in 1877 in Medan-Deli, Sumatra but who died at the age of 2 in Holbæk.

Gallery

File:Feilberg Klings Penang 1867.jpg, Kling Indians in Penang. Exhibited at Paris World Exposition in 1867 File:Feilberg Batak canoe Sumatra 1870.jpg, Batak canoe, Sumatra (1870) File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Batak-hoogplateau-boven DeliLangkat Serdangenz. Dorp à 1870 TMnr 60025554.jpg, Batak village, North Sumatra (1870) File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kampement langs een rivier op de Karo-hoogvlakte in de omgeving van Sibraija TMnr 60011129.jpg, Encampment by a river in the Karo heights, Sumatra (1870)

References

External links