Gustav Richard Lambert

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav (e) Richard Lambert (born February 17, 1846 in Berlin ; † May 23, 1907 in Radebeul ; also Richard Lambert ) was a photographer in Singapore (founder of G. R. Lambert & Co. ) and in Dresden . Graduated as court photographer of the King of Siam in the Far East, he was also listed as such in the address book of purveyors to the court in the Kingdom of Saxony during his later time in Dresden .

Live and act

According to a source, Lambert arrived in Singapore in 1875, where he opened the G. R. Lambert & Co. photo studio there in Orchard Road that same year . According to a company advertisement from 1917, Lambert’s studio is said to have existed since 1872. Lambert was related to the Lambert family who ran the Singapore Carriage Works and Livery Stables at the time .

The National Gallery of Australia gives slightly different dates of life: stay in Singapore 1867–70, Holland 1870–77, Singapore 1877–80, Holland 1880–82, Singapore 1882–86 and Germany from around 1886 until his death in 1907. After those Lambert was naturalized in Singapore in 1886. Lambert founded his Singapore photo studio on April 10, 1867 at No. 1 High Street.

Lambert was born with Neeltje Lucretia Coenradina. Groeneveld (born February 23, 1850 in Woerden ; † October 10, 1923 in Radebeul) married and had two daughters and a son ( Fritz Lambert ) with her . In his private life, Lambert last lived in the now listed Villa Hölderlinstrasse 4 in the Dresden suburb of Radebeul , where his son later worked as a psychotherapist.

Lambert was buried in the Radebeul-Ost cemetery, as was his wife and son later.

GR Lambert & Co. in the Far East

Singapore around 1902, Battery Road. To the right of the dark building is Lambert's Photo Studio sign .

From 1878 Lambert's photo studio advertised the Orchard Road location in the Singapore directory for the Straits Settlements . In 1885 or 1886 Lambert handed over the management of the company in Singapore to his partner Alexander Koch and left the Straits Settlements to return to Germany. For the next twenty years, until 1905, Koch ran the business. In the 1890s, the company's headquarters were in Gresham House on Battery Road, where the Straits Trading Building now stands. From 1905, H. Thomas Jensen , who came from Reutlinger in Paris, ran the business. In August 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, the British H. Nugent Buckeridge (gender unknown), who had come from London from Lafayette, took over the management of the studio in Orchard Road as a photographer.

The branch in the Sultanate of Deli on Sumatra was led by H. Stafhell in the mid-1880s, and there was also a branch in Kuala Lumpur . The Bangkok studio was run by C. Frichas around 1895, and there was another in Borneo . With these numerous branches, Lambert & Co. was the largest photo studio on the Malay Peninsula . Around 3,000 photos of the Far East from before and after the turn of the century, from portraits to landscapes, were created through the work of the Lambert photographers.

GR Lambert and Co. were court photographers to the King of Siam , Chulalongkorn , and the Sultan of Johor . Well-known recordings also come from the Federal Conferences in 1896 and 1903 and from the visit of Governor Sir John Anderson to Kelantan in 1909.

Lambert and his Far Eastern photo studios employed numerous, often also German, photographers, including

  • 1885: C. Petersen, H. Schübert, Miss Besagoiti, TA (or JA) Rodrigues
  • 1901: R. Herbst, HV Katte, C. Warleberg, A. Beattie
  • 1910: O. Schwemer (studio manager), HL Coghlan, W. Ewald, S. Gauder, R. Matsunaga

As a result of the First World War, the German company, which was run until the end under the name of Lambert, who died in 1907, was dissolved in 1919. His possibly direct successor was the photo studio Empire Studio Ltd. , which was active from around 1920 to around 1929 . on.

Lambert's studio in Dresden

Lambert's Saxon studio was at Dresden Seestrasse 21. It was one of the purveyors to the court accredited in Saxony . As his father's successor, his son Fritz, under the name Luis Frederic Lambert , was also listed as a court photographer at Seestrasse 21 in 1907 . In 1909 Lambert had given up the Seestrasse studio and lived as photographer L. Friedrich Lambert on the Bürgerwiese.

reception

Fullerton Square in Singapore before 1906: Singapore Club and Post Office (Hand-colored photo from the exhibition at the Philatelic Museum of Singapore 2010)

“ Lambert has maintained a high reputation for artistic portraiture, and of landscapes they have one of the finest collections in the east, comprising about three thousand subjects relating to Siam, Singapore, Borneo, Malaya and China. An extensive trade is done in picture postcards, the turnover being about quarter of a million cards a year. A large stock of apparatus for amateurs is always kept in hand. "( Arnold Wright:, German:" Lambert established a great reputation for artistic portrait photography. When it came to landscape photography, they had one of the finest collections in the Far East, a total of around three thousand objects from Siam, Singapore, Borneo, Malaya and China. An important one Trade took place in picture postcards, of which around a quarter of a million were sold per year. A large supply of amateur cameras is kept available at all times. ")

In 2010 the Philatelic Museum of Singapore hosted an exhibition with works by Lambert under the title The Originals of GR Lambert . Reason for appreciation: "Early photography in Singapore was shaped by a German: GR Lambert."

literature

  • Dieter Gumpert: A German photographer in Singapore in the 19th century. In: Impulse. The Magazine for the German-speaking Community in Singapore. October 2010, p. 14 f. ( Online. ).
  • John Falconer: A Vision of the Past. A History of Early Photography in Singapore and Malaya. The Photographs of GR Lambert & Co., 1880-1910. 1987.
  • John Falconer, GR Lambert & Co .: A Vision of the Past. A History of Early Photography in Singapore and Malaya. The Photographs of GR Lambert & Co., 1880-1910. Times Editions, 1995, ISBN 978-981-204-589-8 .
  • John Hannavy: Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-87326-4 .
  • Arnold Wright, HA Cartwright: Twentieth century impressions of British Malaya: its history, people, commerce, industries, and resources. London 1907.

Web links

Commons : GR Lambert & Co.  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b According to the civil status documents of the Radebeul City Archives , No. 763.
  2. ^ Address book of purveyors to the court in the Kingdom of Saxony, 1905, p. 79.
  3. ^ GR Lambert and Co in the RCS Photographers Index of the Royal Commonwealth Society Photograph Collection.
  4. ^ A b Dieter Gumpert: A German photographer in Singapore in the 19th century. In: Impulse. The Magazine for the German-speaking Community in Singapore. October 2010, p. 3, 14 f. ( Online. ).
  5. ^ The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942), June 1, 1917, p. 4.
  6. ↑ GR LAMBERT & Co; Gustave LAMBERT.
  7. ^ History SG: Establishment of GR Lambert & Co.
  8. ↑ Buckeridge, H Nugent, fl 1914–1940, photographer in the RCS Photographers Index.
  9. ↑ The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884-1942), August 28, 1914, p. 6.
  10. ^ Gustav Richard Lambert in Singapore in the Lexicon of Photographers.
  11. ^ Empire Studio Ltd in the RCS Photographers Index.
  12. ^ Gustav Richard Lambert in the Lexicon of Photographers.
  13. ^ Entry in the address book of the purveyors to the court in the Kingdom of Saxony , Dresden, 1904, 1905.
  14. ^ Address book Dresden with suburbs, 1907, part II, p. 485.
  15. ^ Address book Dresden with suburbs, 1909, part II, p. 505.
  16. ↑ according to GR Lambert and Co in the RCS Photographers Index of the Royal Commonwealth Society Photograph Collection.
personal data
SURNAME Lambert, Gustav Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lambert, Richard; Lambert, Gustave Richard; Lambert, GR
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Far Eastern and Saxon court photographer, entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1907
Place of death Radebeul