Beato, Felice

Felice (Felix) BEATO (1832-1909) photographed in China in 1860, including the closing stages of the Second Opium War. Beato was of Italian ancestry and was born in Venice. He grew up on the island of Corfu, then a protectorate of Great Britain. Beato claimed British nationality throughout his distinguished career as a commercial photographer, sometimes embedded with the British army. He is considered the most significant war photographer of the nineteenth century. Source: Terry Bennett, History of Photography in China 1842-1860 (London: Quaritch, 2009). See also David Harris, Of Battle and Beauty, Felice Beato’s Photographs of China (Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1999) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felice_Beato.