Wilhelm J. Burger


Wilhelm J. Burger was an Austrian photographer and painter, based in Vienna.
Burger learned photography from his uncle Andreas von Ettingshausen in the 1860s. In 1874, Burger operated a photographic studio in Vienna. When working in French, Burger used the first initial "G.", obviously for "Guillaume". He took photographs in Japan around 1869, and accompanied the :en:Count Johann Nepomuk Wilczek|Wilczek expedition which was needed to prepare the :en:Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition|Payer-Weyprecht polar expedition.
Burger died on 10 March 1920.
A fairly recent discovery has been made of photographs of Siam that were originally attributed to Wilhelm Burger. These photographs were compared to photographs of the same era taken by the Thai court photographer Khun Sunthornsathitsalak. When these photos were lined up side-by-side, it was discovered that what many had considered individual photographs were actually part of a set meant to be combined to form a panoramic view.
The complete set of photographs are now back in Thailand and are illuminating a new generation of Thai and Western students, historians, and everyday people as to what Bangkok of the 1860s really looked like.
In a recent book on Austrian naval visits in Siam, published in June 2012, the author W. Donko concludes that not only these pictures, but a substantial part of the 1869 Siam photo collection attributed to Wilhelm Burger was in fact taken by the court photographer of the King of Siam, Mr. Francis Chit.
Already 2011 Mr. T. Akiyoshi and P. Pantzer showed in an article published in the magazine "Photo Researcher Nr. 15/2011“ that Burger had also bought most of his 1869 photographs of Japan from local photo studios there.
The background of Burgers’ 1869 photographs taken in China has not yet been analyzed in this regard.