Shops and Street, Chinese City of Pekin, October 1860
1860
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image: 25 × 27.7 cm (9 13/16 × 10 7/8 in.) mount: 25.3 × 29.8 cm (9 15/16 × 11 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Michael and Jane Wilson
Accession Number
2012.137.1.21
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling streets of 1860s Peking with Felice Beato's *Shops and Street, Chinese of Pekin, October 1860*. Captured mere weeks after British and French forces seized the city during the Second Opium, this albumen print a vivid snapshot of everyday amid geopolitical turmoil. Be, a pioneering war photographer renowned for documentation of conflicts from the Crimean War to Indian Rebellion, arrived in Peking to record the aftermath, blending stark realism with an eye for cultural detail. The 25 × 27.7 cm image, mounted on a slightly larger 25.3 × 29.8 cm support, showcases Beato's ma...
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...