| Names: | Other: Philip Adolphe Klier
Other: Philipp Klier
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| | Active: | Burma |
In 1871 he was a professional photographer in Moulmein, Burma. His business included work as an optician, watchmaker, and jeweller as well running the firm known as Murken & Klier. Around 1880 Klier moved to Rangoon, Burma‘s largest city. In the wake of the conquest of the Irrawaddy Delta by the British in 1852, Rangoon had become the center of Indo-British power. Klier worked independently until 1885 when he went into partnership with J. Jackson. By 1890 the partnership was dissolved and Klier became and independent again.
He sold his views of Lower Burma, Maulmain and the Andaman Islands, and ‘Burmese celebrities and characters of Burmese life‘. A number of his photographs were produced as photogravures in art books of the time.Preparing biographies
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John Falconer, British Library
A Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Photographers in South and South-East Asia |
Commercial, Burma
Son of Daniel Adolphe Klier (of Mainz?).
Trading with Heinrich Louis Murken (c. 1843-1889) as Murken and Klier, opticians, watchmakers and photographers, Moulmein, 1871-5; Klier trading as a photographer on his own in Moulmein from 1875-84; in partnership with J. Jackson as Jackson and Klier, Rangoon 1885-90; with H. Schultze as assistant in late 1880s. Trading independently as a photographer in Signal Pagoda Road, Rangoon 1890-1915. Possibly left Burma for a period in the 1890s.
Also dealer in ivory carvings at Phayre Street and 3 Sule Pagoda Road, Rangoon.
Listed in directories as follows:
1870 Studio established 1870, according to advertisements.[1]
1871-5 Murken and Klier, opticians, watchmakers and photographers, Moulmein
.
1876 Murken, watchmaker and Klier, photographer: separate businesses.
1877 Klier, jeweller and watchmaker, Moulmein. An account of Moulmein in the Illustrated London News of 17 March 1877, uses two of his photographs and describes ‘Kleir’ as a local artist of considerable repute.’
1882 Illustrated London News in February 1882 publishes engravings of the Viceroy’s visit to Burma, based on Klier’s photographs, and describing him as a ‘photographer of Rangoon.’
1883 Murken, watchmaker and optician.
1884 Klier, photographer
.
1885-90 P. Klier and J. Jackson, photographers, Rangoon
.
1887 Advertises views of Upper Burma, available from his studio at 32 Pagoda Road, in the Rangoon Gazette and Weekly Budget of 1 April 1887. Also advertised views of the Andaman Islands as well as Burmese photographs.
1891 Not listed in trade list, but in residents list. Jackson is listed as a photographer on his own.
1892-1902 Not listed, but recorded as a photographer in Signal Pagoda Road, Rangoon in George W. Bird, Wanderings in Burma (1897).
1903 Photographer, Signal Pagoda Road, Rangoon.
1905 Also advertising as a dealer in objets d’art, furniture, etc
.
1915 Last entry, photographer in Sofaer Buildings, Merchant Street, Rangoon. Also trading in Burmese artwork and silverware.
A letter from Klier dated 15 June 1886, published in The Photographic News (16 July 1886), encloses a photograph of King Thibaw, taken by a photographer ‘now dead’.
PHOTOGRAPHY.
Phil Klier, Photographic Artist.
32 Pagoda Road 32.
Awarded prize medals. Portraits taken from 8 am to 3 pm. Views of Upper and Lower Burma, Maulmain and the Andaman Islands, also Burmese celebrities and characters of Burmese life.
2nd March 1887.[2]
Mr P. Klier again offers this year a fine series of photographs of Burma and the Burmese, handsomely mounted as Christmas cards. The new series includes views of the Ruby Mines, Mogok, Barnardmyo, and other places in our newly acquired territory, which cannot fail to be most interesting to friends at home. The pictures are finished in the highest style of art, and we should advise those in want of a novelty in Christmas cards to look them over before making their purchases. They may be seen at the Studio in Pagoda Road, or at Messrs. Edmund Jones and Co.’s and Messrs S. Oppenheimer and Co.’s.[3]
P. Klier, Photographic Artist. By Appointment to His Honour the Lieut.-Governor of Burma, photographs in all the latest styles, and processes, enlargements, paintings and framing a speciality, pictorial postcards and views of Burma. New selection of steel engravings and panel art studies. Studio, 3, Signal Pagoda Road, Rangoon. Awarded Medals.[4]
P. Klier and Co., hand-painted Xmas and New Year cards. New series and new designs. New and large collection of pictorial postcards in colour and black and white. Views of Burma.
Merchant Street, Sofaer's Building.
Head Ofice and Studio, 3 Signal Pagoda Rd.[5]
Photogravures from Klier's photographs appear in:
Harry L. Tilly, The silverware of Burma (Rangoon, 1901).
Harry L. Tilly, Glass mosaics of Burma (Rangoon, 1901).
Harry L. Tilly, Woodcarvings of Burma (Rangoon, 1903).
Harry L. Tilly, Modern Burmese silverware (Rangoon, 1904).
E.N. Bell, A monograph on iron and steel work in Burma (Rangoon, 1907).
Married Emily Macrae (b. c. 1851), daughter of Robert Campbell Macrae, at Moulmein, 22 December 1873.[6]
Elsa Florence Klier, daughter of Philip Adolphe Klier (watchmaker) and Emily Klier, born 13 July 1878, baptised at St Matthew's, Moulmein, 12 August 1878.[7]
Katherine Norma Murken, daughter of Heinrich Murken (watchmaker) and Constance Catherine Murken, born 15 January 1881, baptised at St Matthew's, Moulmein, 9 February 1881.[8]
Heinrich Louis Murken, merchant, buried in St Matthew's Church, Moulmein, 24 April 1889, aet. 46.[9]
Died 27 March 1911, from ‘dilation of the heart’, buried in the cemetery of the Scots Kirk (now English Methodist Church), Signal Pagoda Road, Rangoon.[10]
[11]
Footnotes
- Λ Advertisement in T. Hesketh Biggs, The Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon (Hanthawaddy Press, Rangoon, 1895).
- Λ Rangoon Gazette and Weekly Budget, 1 Apr 1887.
- Λ Rangoon Gazette and Weekly Budget, 30 Oct 1887.
- Λ Rangoon Times, 23 Nov 1906.
- Λ Rangoon Times, 1 Dec 1906.
- Λ IOR/N/1/146 f. 103.
- Λ IOR N/1/290 f. 289.
- Λ IOR N/1/290 f. 297.
- Λ IOR N/1/290 f. 333.
- Λ IOR/N/1/371 f. 286.
- Λ District Probates, Bengal 1911-13, IOR/L/AG/34/31/13 f. 54.
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