Putting on the Obi or Girdle
1868
Medium
albumen print with applied color
Dimensions
image: 22.8 × 16 cm (9 × 6 5/16 in.) mount: 35 × 50 cm (13 3/4 × 19 11/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Michael and Jane Wilson
Accession Number
2012.137.85
Art Historical Context
**Putting on the Obi or Girdle** (1868) is a captivating albumen print with applied color by Felice Beato, a pioneering British-Italian photographer renowned for his vivid documentation of Asia in the mid-19th century. Capturing a woman meticulously tying an obi—the wide sash essential to traditional Japanese kimono attire—this intimate scene offers a glimpse into everyday rituals during Japan's transformative Meiji era. Beato, one of the first Western photographers to work extensively in Japan after its ports opened in 1854, produced these images amid rapid modernization, blending Western pho...
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...