Kristen Feilberg or Christen Schjellerup Feilberg (26 August 1839 – 1919) was an early Danish 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 Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

, and

Penang Penang is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia along the Strait of Malacca. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay Peninsula. Th ...

. In 1867, he exhibited photos at the

Paris World Exposition Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and around 1870 he joined an expedition to the

Batak Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian peoples, Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who speak Batak languages. The term is used to include the Karo people ( ...

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 8,367 (2025). It is the seat of the Diocese of Ribe. Until 1 January 2007, Ribe was the seat of both a surrounding municipality and county. It is now part of the enlarged E ...

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

. In 1867, Feilberg set up his own studio in Penang and, the same year, exhibited 15 views of Penang and

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

at the

. 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 The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

government to explore the area in the interior around Lake Toba where he photographed the landscape and the

people, including the hierarchical princes. Photographing

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

was an achievement akin to the discovery of

Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropics, tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface are ...

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 The EAC Invest A/S, formerly known as the Santa Fe Group and East Asiatic Company ( or ''ØK'') is a multinational holding and investment company, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Originally founded by Hans Niels Andersen in 1887. It owned 5 subsid ...

.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 () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

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 Wereldmuseum Amsterdam (previously known as Tropenmuseum () between 1950 and 2023) is an ethnographic museum with its headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was originally founded in Haarlem, Netherlands in 1864 under the name ''Koloniaal ...

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 George Town is the capital of the States and federal territories of Malaysia, Malaysian state of Penang. It is the core city of the George Town Conurbation, Malaysia's List of cities and towns in Malaysia by population#Largest metropolitan are ...

. 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 two in

Holbæk Holbæk () is a town in Denmark and the County seat, seat of Holbæk municipality with a population of 30,903 (1 January 2025).

Gallery

File:Feilberg Klings Penang 1867.jpg, Kling Indians in Penang. Exhibited at the

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