Mendicant Nun
1868
Medium
albumen print with applied color
Dimensions
image (oval): 23.5 × 17 cm (9 1/4 × 6 11/16 in.) sheet: 25 × 20.5 cm (9 13/16 × 8 1/16 in.) mount: 50 × 35 cm (19 11/16 × 13 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Michael and Jane Wilson
Accession Number
2012.137.88
Art Historical Context
Felice Beato's *Mendicant* (1868) offers a poignant glimpse into 19th-century Japan through the lens of one of photography's early masters. A British-Italian photographer based in Yokohama during the Meiji Restoration,ato documented the nation's rapid transformation as it opened to the West This oval-framed albumen print captures a humble Buddhist nun, likely wandering and begging for alms—a common sight among mendicant religious figures who embodied spiritual devotion amid societal change. The artwork's medium is a testament to mid-19th-century innovation: albumen prints, made on paper sensi...
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...