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[München], J.B. Obernetter, [1898], Col. title-page, 1 loose plate with 5 portraits of sultans (collotypes) & 50 loose plates [28 x 36 cm.], all collotypes made by Johann Baptists Obernetter, München, after photographs by Charles J. Kleingrothe, each plate with caption "Orig.-Photogr. von C. Kleingrotte, Medan Deli, 1898, and short descriptions below the images in Dutch, German & English. Loose sheets (as issued) in orig. publishers hardcover portfolio (green cloth with gilded title and cover image of a river landscape with a traditional Batak house; H:29 x W:36.5 x D:3.5 cm). - Plates foxed (mainly the margins). - Portfolio in very good clean condition.Very rare complete album that presents a good image of the colonial past at Sumatra, published by Johann Baptist Obernetter (May 31, 1840 in Munich; April 12, 1887 in Munich). Obernetter was a German chemist, photochemist, and printer. He is considered the inventor of collotype printing. - A very rare album, not to be confused with the album Sumatra’s O. K.’ (O.K. is an abbreviation for ‘Oost Kust’, which is Dutch for ‘East Coast’) that was released more than 15 years later. Only four copies of the album for sale here are registered on WorldCat: two incomplete albums at Dutch institutes, and two complete albums at the Yale University Sterling Memorial Library, and the National Library of Australia. - - Charles J. Kleingrothe (24 September 1864, Krefeld - 25 February 1942, Frankfurt), known professionally as C. J. Kleingrothe, was a prolific German commercial who spent nearly 30 years as a photographer in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), as well as in neighbouring British Malaya. Between 1889 and 1925 he had a studio in Medan, Sumatra. In the late 1860s Kleingrothe worked for G.R. Lambert & Co., a leading photographer in Singapore. When the plantation economy of Sumatra flourished in the second half of the 19th century, G.R. Lambert opened a branch of his studio in Medan, then part of the former Deli Sultanate, in 1888, and Kleingrothe took charge of it. In 1891 Kleingrothe worked for ten years with the Swedish photographer H. Stafhell, photographing landscapes, architecture and portraits. In addition to photographs of Singapore and North Sumatra, Kleingrothe also photographed Penang, Malaysia, for his portfolio of the Malay Peninsula. In 1901 the collaboration ended and in 1902 Kleingrothe opened a studio on Kesawan Street in the center of Medan and photographed agricultural subjects such as tobacco, coffee, tea, rubber, etc. Little biographical information is known about Charles J. Kleingrothe, whose photographs of the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya are now highly sought after collectors' items. -- Based in Medan, Sumatra. Kleingrothe published this album, entitled ‘Sumatra’, consisting of 51 collotype plates documenting various facets of social and economic life in Sumatra under Dutch rule. The album showes interesting scenes of the tobacco cultivation, coffee plantations, sultans, dredging, railways, coffee plantations, village scenes, river views, deforestation by Chinese workers, Batak natives, etc.…