Isidore van Kinsbergen (Bruges 1821-Batavia 1905) was a Dutch-Belgian engraver, who arrived in Batavia (Jakarta) in 1851 as an actor and set painter. His foray into photography in 1855 proved to be a lasting career which produced his important art and archaeological legacy. From the 1960s to 70s, he was invited to photograph ‘all peculiarities’ on the Dutch mission to Bangkok and contracted by the Government of the Netherlands-Indies to photograph Java’s antiquities, and then by the Batavian Society to photograph the Borobudur monument (today a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Hampered by the terrain, monsoon and technical difficulties, the Borobudur assignment took more than a year—lasting from April 1873 to June 1874—and produced, albeit of high artistic quality, no more than a hundred prints.
