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Felice Beato

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   Felice Beato, self-portrait, c. 1866.
   Enlarge
   Felice Beato, self-portrait, c. 1866.

   Felice Beato (born 1833 or 1834, died c.1907), sometimes known as Felix
   Beato, was a Corfiote photographer. He was one of the first
   photographers to take pictures in East Asia and one of the first war
   photographers. He is also noted for his genre works, portraits, and
   views and panoramas of the architecture and landscapes of Asia and the
   Mediterranean region. Beato's travels to many lands gave him the
   opportunity to create powerful and lasting images of countries, people
   and events that were unfamiliar and remote to most people in Europe and
   North America. To this day his work provides the key images of such
   events as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Second Opium War. His
   photographs represent the first substantial oeuvre of what came to be
   called photojournalism. He had a significant impact on other
   photographers, and Beato's influence in Japan, where he worked with and
   taught numerous other photographers and artists, was particularly deep
   and lasting.

Origins and identity

   The origins and identity of Felice Beato have been problematic issues,
   but the confusion over his birth date and birthplace seems now to have
   been substantially cleared up. Based on an application for a travel
   permit that he made in 1858, Beato was born in 1833 or 1834 on the
   island of Corfu. At the time of his birth, Corfu was part of the
   British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, and so Beato would have
   qualified as a British subject. Corfu had previously been a Venetian
   possession, and this fact goes some way to explaining the many
   references to Beato as "Italian" and "Venetian".

   Because of the existence of a number of photographs signed "Felice
   Antonio Beato" and "Felice A. Beato", it was long assumed that there
   was one photographer who somehow managed to photograph at the same time
   in places as distant as Egypt and Japan. But in 1983 it was shown by
   Italo Zannier that " Felice Antonio Beato" represented two brothers,
   Felice Beato and Antonio Beato, who sometimes worked together, sharing
   a signature. The confusion arising from the signatures continues to
   cause problems in identifying which of the two photographers was the
   creator of a given image.

Mediterranean, the Crimea and India

   Little is certain about Felice Beato's early development as a
   photographer, though it is said that he bought his first and only lens
   in Paris in 1851. He probably met British photographer James Robertson
   in Malta in 1850 and accompanied him to Constantinople in 1851.
   Robertson had been an engraver at the Imperial Ottoman Mint since 1843
   and had probably taken up photography in the 1840s. In 1853 the two
   began photographing together and they formed a partnership called
   "Robertson & Beato" either in that year or in 1854 when Robertson
   opened a photographic studio in Pera, Constantinople. Robertson and
   Beato were joined by Beato's brother Antonio on photographic
   expeditions to Malta in 1854 or 1856 and to Greece and Jerusalem in
   1857. A number of the firm's photographs produced in the 1850s are
   signed "Robertson, Beato and Co." and it is believed that the "and Co."
   refers to Antonio.
   Interior of the Secundra Bagh after the slaughter of 2,000 rebels by
   the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Regt.
   Enlarge
   Interior of the Secundra Bagh after the slaughter of 2,000 rebels by
   the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Regt.

   In late 1854 or early 1855 James Robertson married the Beato brothers'
   sister, Leonilda Maria Matilda Beato. They had three daughters,
   Catherine Grace (b. 1856), Edith Marcon Vergence (b. 1859) and Helen
   Beatruc (b. 1861).

   In 1855 Felice Beato and Robertson travelled to Balaklava, Crimea where
   they took over reportage of the Crimean War following Roger Fenton's
   departure. They photographed the fall of Sebastopol in September 1855,
   producing about 60 images.

   In February 1858 Felice Beato arrived in Calcutta and began travelling
   throughout Northern India to document the aftermath of the Indian
   Rebellion of 1857. During this time he produced possibly the first-ever
   photographic images of corpses. It is believed that for at least one of
   his photographs taken at the palace of Secundra Bagh in Lucknow he had
   the skeletal remains of Indian rebels disinterred or rearranged to
   heighten the photograph's dramatic impact (see events at Taku Forts).
   He was also in the cities of Delhi, Cawnpore, Meerut, Benares,
   Amritsar, Agra, Simla and Lahore. Beato was joined in July 1858 by his
   brother Antonio, who later left India, probably for health reasons, in
   December 1859. Antonio ended up in Egypt in 1860, setting up a
   photographic studio in Thebes in 1862.

China

   In 1860 Felice Beato left the partnership of "Robertson & Beato",
   though Robertson retained use of the name until 1867. Beato was sent
   from India to photograph the Anglo-French military expedition to China
   in the Second Opium War. He arrived in Hong Kong in March and
   immediately began photographing the city and its surroundings as far as
   Canton. Beato's photographs are some of the earliest taken in China.

   While in Hong Kong, Beato met Charles Wirgman, an artist and
   correspondent for the Illustrated London News. The two accompanied the
   Anglo-French forces travelling north to Talien Bay, then to Pehtang and
   the Taku Forts at the mouth of the Peiho, and on to Peking and the
   suburban Summer Palace, Qingyi Yuan. Wirgman's (and others')
   illustrations for the Illustrated London News are often derived from
   Beato's photographs of the places on this route.

Taku Forts

   Interior of Angle of North Fort Immediately after Its Capture, 21st
   August, 1860
   Enlarge
   Interior of Angle of North Fort Immediately after Its Capture, 21st
   August, 1860

   Beato's photographs of the Second Opium War are the first to document a
   military campaign as it unfolded, doing so through a sequence of dated
   and related images. His photographs of the Taku Forts represent this
   approach on a reduced scale, forming a narrative recreation of a
   battle. The sequence of images shows the approach to the forts, the
   effects of bombardments on the exterior walls and fortifications and
   finally the devastation within the forts, including the bodies of dead
   Chinese soldiers. Interestingly, the photographs were not taken in this
   order as the photographs of dead Chinese had to be taken first before
   the bodies were removed; only then was Beato free to take the other
   views of the exterior and interior of the forts. In albums of the time
   these photographs are placed in such a way as to recreate the sequence
   of the battle .

   Beato's images of the Chinese dead — he never photographed British or
   French dead — and his manner of producing them particularly reveal the
   ideological aspects of his photojournalism. Dr. David F. Rennie, a
   member of the expedition, noted in his campaign memoir, “I walked round
   the ramparts on the West side. They were thickly strewn with dead — in
   the North-West angle thirteen were lying in one group around a gun.
   Signor Beato was there in great excitement, characterising the group as
   ‘beautiful’ and begging that it might not be interfered with until
   perpetuated by his photographic apparatus, which was done a few minutes
   afterwards…” . The resultant photographs are a powerful representation
   of military triumph and British imperialist power, not least for the
   purchasers of his images: British soldiers, colonial administrators,
   merchants and tourists. Back in Britain Beato's images were used to
   justify the Opium (and other colonial) Wars and they shaped public
   awareness of the cultures that existed in the East.

Summer Palace

   Belvedere of the God of Literature, Summer Palace, before its
   destruction
   Enlarge
   Belvedere of the God of Literature, Summer Palace, before its
   destruction

   Just outside Peking, Beato took photographs at the Summer Palace,
   Qingyi Yuan (Garden of Clear Ripples), a private estate of the Chinese
   emperor comprising palace pavilions, temples, a large artificial lake
   and gardens. Some of these photographs, taken between 6 and 18 October
   1860, are haunting, unique images of buildings that were plundered and
   looted by the Anglo-French forces beginning on the 6 October, and then,
   on the 18 and 19 October, set to the torch by the British First
   Division on the orders of Lord Elgin as a reprisal against the emperor
   for the torture and deaths of twenty members of an Allied diplomatic
   party. Among the last photographs that Beato took in China at this time
   were portraits of Lord Elgin, arrived in Peking to sign the Convention
   of Peking, and Prince Kung, who signed on behalf of the Xianfeng
   Emperor.

   Beato had returned to England by November 1861, and during that winter
   he sold four hundred of his photographs of India and China to Henry
   Hering, a London commercial portrait photographer. Hering had them
   duplicated and then resold them. When they first went on sale single
   views were offered at 7 shillings, while the complete India series was
   priced at £54 8s and the complete China series at £37 8s. Knowing that
   by 1867 the average per capita income in England and Wales had climbed
   to £32 per year puts the price of Beato's photographs into perspective.

Japan

   By 1863 Beato had moved to Yokohama, Japan, joining Charles Wirgman who
   had been there since 1861. The two formed and maintained a partnership
   called “Beato & Wirgman, Artists and Photographers” during the years
   1864–1867. Wirgman again produced illustrations derived from Beato's
   photographs while Beato photographed some of Wirgman's sketches and
   other works. Beato's Japanese photographs include portraits, genre
   works, landscapes, cityscapes and a series of photographs documenting
   the scenery and sites along the Tōkaidō, the latter series recalling
   the ukiyo-e of Hiroshige and Hokusai. This was a significant time to be
   photographing in Japan since foreign access to (and within) the country
   was greatly restricted by the Shogunate. Beato's images are remarkable
   not only for their quality, but for their rarity as photographic views
   of Edo period Japan.
   Samurai of the Satsuma clan, during the Boshin War period (1868-1869)
   Enlarge
   Samurai of the Satsuma clan, during the Boshin War period (1868-1869)

   Beato was very active while in Japan. In September 1864 he was an
   official photographer on the military expedition to Shimonoseki. The
   following year he produced a number of dated views of Nagasaki and its
   surroundings. From 1866 he was often (gently) caricatured in Japan
   Punch, which was founded and edited by Wirgman. In an October 1866 fire
   that destroyed much of Yokohama, Beato lost his studio and negatives
   and he spent the next two years working vigorously to produce
   replacement material. The result was two volumes of photographs,
   ‘Native Types’, containing 100 portraits and genre works, and ‘Views of
   Japan’, containing 98 landscapes and cityscapes. Many of the
   photographs were hand-coloured, a technique that in Beato's studio
   successfully applied the refined skills of Japanese watercolourists and
   woodblock printmakers to European photography. From 1869 to 1877 Beato,
   no longer partnered with Wirgman, ran his own studio in Yokohama called
   “F. Beato & Co., Photographers” with an assistant named H. Woolett and
   four Japanese photographers and four Japanese artists. Kusakabe Kimbei
   was probably one of Beato's artist-assistants before becoming a
   photographer in his own right. Beato photographed with Ueno Hikoma and
   others, and possibly taught photography to Raimund von Stillfried.
   Japanese samurai in armour, 1860s.
   Enlarge
   Japanese samurai in armour, 1860s.

   In 1871 Beato served as official photographer with the United States
   naval expedition of Admiral Rodgers to Korea. The views Beato took on
   this expedition are the earliest confirmed photographs of the country
   and its inhabitants.

   While in Japan, Beato did not confine his activities to photography,
   but also engaged in a number of business ventures. He owned land and
   several studios, was a property consultant, had a financial interest in
   the Grand Hotel of Yokohama and was a dealer in imported carpets and
   women's bags, among other things. He also appeared in court on several
   occasions, variously as plaintiff, defendant and witness. On 6 August
   1873 Beato was appointed Consul General for Greece in Japan, a fact
   that possibly supports the case for his origins being in Corfu.

   In 1877, Beato sold most of his stock to the firm, Stillfried &
   Andersen, who then moved into his studio. In turn, Stillfried &
   Andersen sold the stock to Adolfo Farsari in 1885. Following the sale
   to Stillfried & Andersen, Beato apparently retired for some years from
   photography, concentrating on his parallel career as a financial
   speculator and trader. On 29 November 1884 Beato left Japan, ultimately
   landing in Port Said, Egypt. It was reported in a Japanese newspaper
   that he had lost all his money on the Yokohama silver exchange.

Later years

   Queen's Silver Pagoda, Mandalay, c. 1889
   Enlarge
   Queen's Silver Pagoda, Mandalay, c. 1889

   From 1884 to 1885 Beato was the official photographer of the
   expeditionary forces led by Baron (later Viscount) G.J. Wolseley to
   Khartoum, Sudan in relief of General Charles Gordon. None of the
   photographs Beato took in Sudan are known to have survived.

   Briefly back in England, in 1886 Beato lectured the London and
   Provincial Photographic Society on photographic techniques. But by 1888
   he was photographing in Asia again, this time in Burma, where from 1896
   he operated a photographic studio (called ‘The Photographic Studio’) as
   well as a furniture and curio business in Mandalay, with a branch
   office in Rangoon. Examples of his mail order catalogue — affixed with
   Beato's own photographs of the merchandise on offer — are in the
   possession of at least two photographic collections. Knowledge of his
   last years is as sketchy as that of his early years; Beato may or may
   not have been working after 1899, but in January 1907 his company, F.
   Beato Ltd., went into liquidation and it is presumed that he died
   shortly thereafter.

Beato and photography

   Photographs of the 19th century often now shows the limitations of the
   technology used, yet Felice Beato managed to successfully work within
   and even transcend those limitations. He predominantly produced albumen
   silver prints from wet collodion glass-plate negatives. Beyond
   aesthetic considerations, the long exposure times needed by this
   process must have been a further stimulus to Beato to frame and
   position the subjects of his photographs carefully. Apart from his
   portrait-making, he often posed local people in such a way as to set
   off the architectural or topographical subjects of his images, but
   otherwise people (and other moving objects) are sometimes rendered a
   blur or disappear altogether during the long exposures. Such blurs are
   a common feature of 19th century photographs.

   Like other 19th century commercial photographers, Beato often made copy
   prints of his original photographs. The original would have been pinned
   to a stationary surface and then photographed, producing a second
   negative from which to make more prints. The pins used to hold the
   original in place are sometimes visible in copy prints. In spite of the
   limitations of this method, including the loss of detail and
   degradation of other picture elements, it was an effective and
   economical way to duplicate images.

   Beato pioneered and refined the techniques of hand-colouring
   photographs and making panoramas. He may have started hand-colouring
   photographs at the suggestion of Wirgman or he may have seen the
   hand-coloured photographs made by partners Charles Parker and William
   Parke Andrew. Whatever the inspiration, Beato's coloured landscapes are
   delicate and naturalistic and his coloured portraits, though more
   strongly coloured than the landscapes, are also excellent. As well as
   providing views in colour, Beato worked to represent very large
   subjects in a way that gave a sense of their vastness. Throughout his
   career, Beato's work is marked by spectacular panoramas, which he
   produced by carefully making several contiguous exposures of a scene
   and then joining the resulting prints together, thereby re-creating the
   expansive view. The complete version of his panorama of Pehtang
   comprises nine photographs joined together almost seamlessly for a
   total length of more than 2.5 metres (8 ft).
   Panorama of Edo (now Tokyo), 1865 or 1866. Five albumen prints joined
   to form a panorama.
   Enlarge
   Panorama of Edo (now Tokyo), 1865 or 1866. Five albumen prints joined
   to form a panorama.

   While the signatures he shared with his brother are one source of
   confusion in attributing images to Felice Beato, there are additional
   difficulties in this task. When Stillfried & Andersen bought up Beato's
   stock they subsequently followed the common practice of 19th century
   commercial photographers of reselling the photographs under their own
   name. They (and others) also altered Beato's images by adding numbers,
   names and other inscriptions associated with their firm in the
   negative, on the print or on the mount. For many of Beato's images that
   were not hand-coloured, Stillfried & Andersen produced hand-coloured
   versions. All of these factors have caused Beato's photographs to be
   frequently misattributed to Stillfried & Andersen. Fortunately, Beato
   captioned many of his photographs by writing in graphite or ink on the
   back of the print. When such photographs are mounted, the captions can
   still often be seen through the front of the image and read with the
   use of a mirror. Besides helping in the identification of the subject
   of the image and sometimes in supplying a date for the exposure, these
   captions provide one method of identifying Felice Beato as the creator
   of many images.

Notable photographs

   Photographs are indicated with Beato's own titles or titles from his
   era, followed by a descriptive title and the date of exposure.

                Balaklava Harbour, Crimea
                View of Balaklava Harbour, Crimea (with, or as an
                assistant to, James Robertson), 1855

                Interior of the Secundra Bagh after the slaughter of 2,000
                rebels by the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Regt.
                View of the ruins of Sikandarbagh Palace showing the
                skeletal remains of rebels in the foreground, Lucknow,
                India, 1858

                Chutter Manzil Palace, with the King's Boat in the Shape
                of a Fish
                View of one of the Chattar Manzil [Umbrella Palaces]
                showing the King's boat called The Royal Boat of Oude on
                the Gomti River. Lucknow, India, 1858 - 1860

                Interior of Angle of North Fort Immediately after Its
                Capture, 21st August, 1860
                Partial view of the ruins of the Upper North Taku Fort,
                showing dead soldiers, Taku (now Dagu), near Tientsin (now
                Tianjin), China, 1860

                North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin
                Panorama of the northeast corner watchtower, walls, and
                Dongzhi Gate of the Inner City, Peking (now Beijing),
                China, 1860

                Imperial Summer Palace before the Burning, Yuen-Ming-Yuen
                (sic), Pekin, October 18th, 1860
                View of the Belvedere of the God of Literature [Wen Chang
                Di Jun Ge] (now known as the Studio of Literary Prosperity
                or Wen Chang Ge), Garden of the Clear Ripples [Qing Yi
                Yuan] (now known as the Summer Palace or Yihe Yuan),
                Peking (now Beijing), China, 1860

                Portrait of Prince Kung, Brother of the Emperor of China;
                who Signed the Treaty, 1860
                Portrait of Prince Yixin (also known as Prince Gong), son
                of Daoguang, Emperor of China, seated in an armchair,
                Peking (now Beijing), China, 1860

                Panorama of Yedo (sic) from Atagoyama
                Panorama of Edo (now Tokyo) showing daimyo residences,
                Japan, 1865 or 1866

                Daibootes
                View of the Daibutsu [Great Buddha], Kotokuin Temple,
                Kamakura, Japan, 1860s

                Scene Along the Tokaido
                View of houses and people on the Tōkaidō, Japan, 1867 -
                1868

                The Ford at Sakawa-Nagawa
                View of porters at a ford on a river, Japan, 1863 - 1885

                The Shimabara-han Fief Second Residence
                Partial view of the Shimazu (also known as Satsuma) clan's
                Takanawa daimyo residence on the Tōkaidō, Edo (now Tokyo),
                Japan, 1867

                Woman Using Cosmetic
                Vignette of a woman using cosmetics, Japan, 1863 - 1885

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