August Sachtler (c.1839–1873) was one of the most active photographers in Southeast Asia in the 1860s and early 1870s. He is believed to have been one of the photographers at Sachtler & Co., which was one of the first commercial photography studios in Singapore and likely to have been established in 1863. Singapore served as Sachtler’s base from which he embarked on photographic expeditions to other parts of Southeast Asia. Several advertisements published in the Straits Times in June and July 1874, describes “Sachtler’s Photographic Rooms” (which was then located at No. 88 High Street) as having “Always on hand, views and types of Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Saigon, Siam, Burmah and Straits Settlements”.The albumen prints in this collection consist mostly of studio portraits and reflects the wide ethnic diversity of people photographed by Sachtler. Most of these prints are on carte-de-visite mounts, which feature four designs used by the ‘A. Sachtler’ studio between 1863 and 1873.
