Christen Schjellerup Feilberg

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

Kristen Feilberg was born on 26 August 1839 in Vester Vedsted near Ribe in the west of Jutland, Denmark. He was the son of Nikolai Laurentius Feilberg, a well-known cleric, and Conradine Antonette Caroline Købke. He was trained as a photographer.

Life in the East Indies

Kristen Feilberg: Kling Indians in Penang. Exhibited at Paris World Exposition in 1867.

After giving up his dream of becoming a painter like his uncle, the artist Christen Købke, he followed his sister Cecilie Margrethe Feilberg to Singapore in 1862. Here he worked partly as a tobacco agent, and became an owner of a plantation, along with his Danish colleague Nicolaj Thomsen. They also had some family relation. In addition, Kristen worked 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 was an achievement of similar nature 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. 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 as evidenced by his photograph of Dayak women from the central area of the island. Scores of Feilberg's photographs from the collection at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam can be accessed on Wikimedia Commons as well as at the Tropenmuseum itself. Feilberg died in Singapore in 1919.

Family

On May 1st 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 on a visit to Denmark, Kristen married Anna Eleonora Sophie Lassen, and went back to Medan-Deli, Sumatra. They had one son, Hjalmar, who was born in 1877. In the beginning everything went fine, but somehow Kristen got mentally sick, which made him turn against his colleague Nicolaj Thomsen and their plantation business. He also developed hallucinations with stronger Christian beliefs. Anna and Hjalmar returned to Denmark, while Kristen departed some months after. On the boat back home to Copenhagen he nearly committed suicide by jumping overboard, when it reached London. The Feilberg and Lassen-family fought for Kristen's wellbeing. It became a conflict. In Denmark Hjalmar died in 1880, at the age of 2 in Egebjerg at Sorø. The marriage was never successful, but with their son's death, it had now reached a turning point. The Feilberg family never felt comfortable with Anna's personality. The couple separated in 1884 and Kristen moved back to Singapore for the third and last time in 1885 as a photographer. He was a broken man, and was never seen by the family again. He only existed through letters, but became the fascinating distant uncle in Asia.

Photo of Kristen and his adventurous nephew Albert Gottlieb jr. in Singapore, 1892.

In Singapore Kristen lived in 15 years until he in 1900 moved to Tringanu, 450 km north of Singapore. Here he had company by his three monkeys Kitty, Jacho and Bambu Splinter, a dog, three yellow cats, a white-tailed eagle on the balcony, a 3,5 meters long Boa Constrictor snake in a cage(!), a bear cub, and a tiger called Tunku Fatima (princess Fatima), awarded to him by the native hunters that called Kristen the Grandpa of the Country danish: Landets Bedstefader. The tiger was eventually awarded to Zoologisk Have in Copenhagen. In the Feilberg family a claw from the tiger is preserved in a golden necklace.

After he had been living in Tringanu (today Kuala Terengganu) as an agent for Øst Asiatisk Comp Ltd, Kristen moved for the last time back to Singapore, and lived by a pretty fortune gained from his former workplace. He died in his home on 9. Dhoby Ghaut in Singapore on the 12th of August 1919. His daughter Emma, a nun in Japan, took care of him.