Curio Shop
c. 1865
Medium
albumen print with applied color
Dimensions
image/sheet: 20 × 25.3 cm (7 7/8 × 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund
Accession Number
2017.70.1
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling world of mid-19th-century Japan Felice Beato's *Curio Shop* (c. 1865), a captivating albumen print hand-colored with applied pigments. This 20 × 25.3 cm photograph captures quaint storefront brimming with eclectic treasures—porcelain, fans, and trinkets—that enticed Western visitors during Japan's rapid opening to the world after the 1853 arrival of Commodore Perry's "Black Ships." Beato a pioneering British-Italian photographer, arrived in Yokohama in 1863, where he established one of the first studios producing souvenir images for tourists and diplomats. His work docu...
About the Artist
Felice Beato
Felice Beato (c. 1832–1909), an Italian-born photographer who became a British subject through his family's residence on the British protectorate island of Corfu, emerged as one of the pioneering figures in war and travel photography. Born in Venice or Corfu to a Venetian noble family with roots in Corfu, Beato's early life remains somewhat obscure, but he acquired his first photographic lens in P...