Jacobus Anthonie Meessen

Kali Mati, Padang, Sumatra, photographed by Meessen

Meessen and his wife departed for the Indies in 1864, first arriving in Batavia, where Meessen established a photo studio in early 1867.[1] He was one of the few photographers active in the Indies in the 1860s; contemporaries included Isidore van Kinsbergen, Adolph Schaefer, and the commercial firm of Woodbury and Page (operated by Walter B. Woodbury and James Page). Meessen hoped to eventually take images of the Indies' various lands and people. From May to August, he was in Sumatra, first in Padang and later in the Minang Highlands. There he offered various photographic services, including double and family portraits. When he returned to Batavia in September, he opened another studio,[1] offering portraits and selling prints of landscapes.[8]

Three months later Jacobus and Johanna sold their belongings and moved back to Padang, where the Meessens established a photography studio. In their biography of the photographer, Mattie Boom and Steven Wachlin suggest that this was likely a commercial necessity, as Meessen may have been unable to compete with the Batavia-based Woodbury and Page.[1] By November 1868 Jacobus was advertising his first album, titled Sumatra's Westkust (Sumatra's West Coast).[9] Bound in Moroccan leather, the album contained more than sixty landscapes of Padang and surrounding cities (including Padang Panjang and Fort de Kock).[lower-alpha 2][1] By June 1869, his studio at the Sumatra Hotel was offering workshops, as well as images from northern Sumatra and Nias.[10]

Altogether, Meessen's photographic ventures in the Indies – and the resulting albums – cost some 34,000 Netherlands Indies gulden, which included camera equipment (though it is not known what model(s) he used), chemicals, transportation, and accommodations. Meessen worked alone, never taking a partner while in the Indies, and documented the land and people in the colony in his albumen prints.[1][9] In his ethnographic photography of the indigenous peoples of the Indies, he often had to overcome superstitions which, the Bataviaasch Handelsblad wrote, "made taking images of the people outside Java almost impossible".[lower-alpha 3][11] Others were more enthusiastic, including the villagers of Nias: "Upon arrival I fired a few shots and flew the Dutch flag. Soon the villagers came and asked what I wanted. Once I told them, they promised their assistance. At exactly 5 a.m. the following morning I found some 60 warriors waiting for me on the beach."[lower-alpha 4][1]

Ciliwung, Batavia, photographed by Meessen; after returning to the Netherlands, he actively marketed his images of the Indies.

In June 1869, Meessen and his wife returned to Batavia, and the following year they returned to Utrecht.[1] There, in late 1870, Meessen partnered with Abraham Adrianus Vermeulen to open a new studio, named A. A. Vermeulen & Company. They signed a contract for five years, but this collaboration collapsed in March 1873. Boom and Wachlin suggest that Vermeulen – best known for portraits – had been interested in the possibility of expanding his range with landscapes, whereas Meessen required a place to print and market his images of the Indies. Indeed, in February 1871 Meessen gave an album of his better-executed photographs from his time in Java and Sumatra to King William III.[1] This album of 153 images was lavishly decorated with silver and gold, and featured the names of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Nias in the corners. In the center were silver coconut and banana trees surrounding Dutch and Batavian weapons.[1][12]

Over the next few years Meessen continued marketing his images of the Indies. In 1875, he published a collection of 250 – consisting of 175 landscapes and 75 portraits – through the Amsterdam-based printer De Bussy; this collection was titled Verzameling Fotografien van Nederlandsch Indië (Collection of Photographs of the Dutch East Indies), sold for 225 gulden, and came in a walnut box.[13] At the 1875 Exposition Géographique in Paris, he exhibited these images to critical acclaim. The Bataviaasch Handelsblad, in one review, wrote that the attempt to document the Indies was commendable, and expressed hope that images of animals could also be taken.[11] In 1883 Meessen again exhibited his photographs, this time at the International Colonial and Export Trade Exhibition in Amsterdam.[1] Ultimately, however, he does not appear to have made a return on his investment.[14]

Meessen's final years were migratory, with some time spent in Gorredijk and other parts of Opsterland, Friesland. He worked as a building superintendent, and later municipal architect.[1] One of his projects in this capacity was an elementary school on Zuidwest Dubbele Street in Gorredijk, a Neo-Gothic building – possibly influenced by similar schools in Raamsdonkveer and Amsterdam – constructed to replace an older school which had been demolished.[1] Meessen died in Opsterland on 14 November 1885 after being stricken by an illness three days earlier.[15] The incomplete school was finished by Hidde Petrus Nicolaas Halbertsma.[lower-alpha 5][16][17]