Felice (Felix) BEATO (1832-1909) photographed in China in 1860, including the closing stages of the Second Opium War. Beato was born in Venice and grew up on the island of Corfu, then a protectorate of Britain. He claimed British nationality throughout his distinguished career as a commercial photographer. He is considered the most significant war photographer of the nineteenth century. Source: Terry Bennett History of Photography in China 1842-1860 (Quaritch 2009), pp141-162. See also Of Battle and Beauty, Felice Beato’s Photographs of China by David Harris (Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1999) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felice_Beato.
