Felice Beato

Felice Beato (1832-1909) was a pioneering photographer who took famous early images of battlefields and spent years in Asia, taking the first photographs of many Asian monuments. Beato was born in Venice but early in his life his family moved to Corfu, then a British protectorate, so he was a British citizen. He seems to have purchased his first camera in Paris in 1851; in 1853 he set up a photographic business in Istanbul. He was in India in 1857 to document the later phases of the Indian Mutiny. This is Interior of the Secundra Bagh after the Slaughter of 2,000 rebels by the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Regiment, November 1857, Lucknow.

Beato took his first war photographs during the Crimean War. This is Part of the Redan at Sevastopol, 1855.

Mosque inside Asophoo Dowlah's Emambara, Lucknow, probably 1857.

Treasury Street, Canton, 1862.

From 1863 to 1877 Beato lived in Japan, operating a studio in Yokohama. Samurai of the Chosyu Clan, 1860s.

Koboto Santaro, 1863.

Main Street of Kanagawa, c. 1860.

Bronze Statue of Jeso Sama, Hakoni Lake, 1870s.

In the 1880s and 1890s Beato continued to travel Asia, taking numerous photographs in Burma. The Queen's Silver Palace, Mandalay 1889.