Fedor Jagor (1816–1900) was a German ethnologist, naturalist, and photographer who travelled in Southeast Asia in the late 1850s. He stopped in Singapore between 1857 and 1858, and took many photographs of the island and its people. He also met prominent Peranakan tycoon Tan Kim Ching, and left these impressions of him in his 1866 travel book: “Some Chinese have acquired great wealth and are among the most respected citizens of the city; some have given significant sums for public purposes. One of the most outstanding among them is Tan Kim Ching.” In the late 1860s, well after his return to Europe, Jagor’s stereoview photographs of Singapore were published in Berlin. Stereoviews, also called stereoscopic photographs, were very popular in the 19th century, and created an illusion of depth by presenting two photographs of the same image taken at slightly different angles. The pair of images pasted on a card would be viewed through a binocular viewer, which would create a single three dimensional image.The caption behind the image indicates the photograph was taken in Singapore and that the subject is a rich Chinese merchant from Malacca “who has Malay blood through the women”. Although it does not specifically mention Tan Kim Ching, Jagor singles him out by name in his book and also describes the Peranakan community at length. Altogether, this strongly suggests that the image is a portrait of Tan and his family. This stereoview is the oldest photograph on paper in the Singapore National Collection.
