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Frederick Fiebig

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For other people with the same name, see Frédéric Fiebig.
St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta
"St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta," hand-coloured photographic print, by Frederick Fiebig. Dated 1851.

Frederick Fiebig was a German-born photographer, best known for his photographs of 19th-century British India, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Cape Town taken in the 1850s.[1]

History

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There is very little information available about Frederick Fiebig. He was of German origin and became a lithographer in Calcutta in the 1840s. With the advent of photography in British India, Fiebig began producing hand-coloured prints of photographs captured using the calotype process. His images of Calcutta and Madras[1] are some of the earliest views of these cities. Fiebig also travelled to Madras, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Cape Town in South Africa, meticulously cataloguing the monuments and people around him.[2] In doing so, he did not limit himself to views of British buildings, but also photographed scenes of other counties' colonial settlements, as well as indigenous neighbourhoods, mosques and temples.[3]

Only one contemporary source exists about his work, referring to his stay in Madras in early 1852 (‘Photography in Madras,’ Illustrated Indian Journal of Arts, Madras, part 4, February 1852, p. 32) According to this article, he also took photographs of Singapore, Burma, and China, but no examples of such images have been found.[4]

The earliest surviving photographs of 19th-century Ceylon are considered those taken by Fiebig. Following a trip to southern India in 1852, he took photos of major cities and scenery on the island. His hand-coloured salted paper prints suggest that he photographed in Galle (then the principal port), Colombo and Kandy. His views of architectural monuments, landscapes, coffee estates and portraits of 'native types' have become common themes for subsequent generations of commercial photographers on the island.[5]

In 1856, the East India Company acquired some 500 of his photographs, which are now part of the Oriental and India Office collections at the British Library.[6]

Reception

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Among other exhibits, Fiebig's photograph of a Juggernaut procession float in Madras was shown in the 2004/2005 exhibition In the Realm of Gods and Kings: Arts of India, Selections from the Polsky Collections and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.[7] The MET museum also owns a photograph of the Gunpowder Agent's Bungalow at Ichapore, India, taken by Fiebig in 1858.[8] Further, lithographs and photographs from his work have been sold by auction houses such as Bonhams and Christie's.[9][10]

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Hand-coloured photographs by Frederick Fiebig, 1851

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Library, British. "Palace of the Nawaub of the Carnatic, Madras". bl.uk/. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  2. ^ Raman, A (21 March 2011). "Frederick Fiebig and Madras photos". The New Indian Express. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
  3. ^ John Falconer (2001), India : pioneering photographers, 1850-1900, London : British Library and Howard and Jane Ricketts Collection, pp. 12, 42, 105, ISBN 978-0-7123-4746-4, retrieved 2025-07-13{{citation}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  4. ^ John Falconer (2008). "Frederick Fiebig". In Hannavy, John (ed.). Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography. New York: Taylor & Francis Group. p. 529. ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2.
  5. ^ John Falconer (2008). "Ceylon". In Hannavy, John (ed.). Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography. New York: Taylor & Francis Group. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2.
  6. ^ British Library, India Office Records, Miscellaneous Letters Received, vol. 193, 1856
  7. ^ Fiebig, Frederick (1850s), Juggernaut Car, Madras, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved 2025-07-13
  8. ^ https://timelessmoon.getarchive.net/media/gunpowder-agents-bungalow-ishapoor-93552f
  9. ^ "Frederick Fiebig". Christie's. 1999. Retrieved 2025-07-13.
  10. ^ "Bonhams : FIEBIG (FREDERICK) View of a park in Calcutta, c.1850". Retrieved 2025-07-13.

Further reading

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  • Luis J. Gordo Peláez, Paul B. Niell, ed. (2024), Architecture and extraction in the Atlantic world, 1500-1850, Routledge research in architectural history, London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 67–68, ISBN 978-1-032-43111-6
  • Benita Stambler (2013-11-01), "Maintaining the Photographic Legacy of Ceylon", Trans Asia Photography, vol. 4, no. 1, doi:10.1215/215820251_4-1-105, ISSN 2158-2025
  • Anantanarayanan Raman (2011), "Photography and photomicrography in 19th century Madras", Current Science, vol. 101, no. 6, pp. 800–802, ISSN 0011-3891, JSTOR 24078675
  • Arnold, David. The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, and Science, 1800–1856. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006.
  • Falconer, John. Photography in Nineteenth Century India. London: The Alkazi Collection of Photography, 2001.
  • Falconer, John. A Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Photographers in South and South-East Asia. London: British Library, 1991.
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