There is very little information available about Frederick Fiebig. He was probably of German origin and became a lithographer in
Calcutta in the 1840s. He should not be confused with his contemporary and German compatriot, the Letton born post impressionist and expressionist painter
Frédéric Fiebig. He was possibly also a piano teacher for a time.[2] With the advent of
photography, Fiebig began producing hand-coloured prints of photographs captured using the
calotype process. His photographs of Calcutta are some of the earliest views of the city. He later travelled to
Madras,
Colombo and
Kandy in
Sri Lanka,
Mauritius, and
Cape Town in
South Africa, meticulously cataloguing the monuments and people around him. The
East India Company acquired roughly 500 of his photographs in 1856[1] which are now part of the Oriental and India Office collections at the
British Library.[3]
Gallery
Photographs by Frederick Fiebig
Gateway to the former Danish settlement of
Serampore (also called Frederiksnagore by the Danes) on the Hoogly River north of Calcutta, 1851.