129
Soon after his arrival in London in October 1861,
Beato sold the rights to his India and China images
to the commercial publisher Henry Herring. The fol-
lowing summer, Herring exhibited the portfolios at his
Regent Street premises, though he planned to market
the collection primarily by mail subscription. While the
commercial success of this venture was probably mod-
est, Herring’s subscription list provides scholars with
a valuable resource for the study of Beato’s India and
China portfolios (for reproduction see Harris, Of Battle
and Beauty, 177–180).
During the Anglo-French campaign in China, Beato
met the British artist and Illustrated London News cor-
respondent Charles Wirgman. A resident of Yokohama
since May 1861, it was probably at Wirgman’s instiga-
tion that Beato decided to fi rst visit Japan. By 13 July
1863, as Wirgman noted in one of his regular columns,
Beato’s photographs were already attracting attention in
Yokohama: “my house is inundated with Japan offi cers,
who come to see my sketches and my companion Si-
gnor B-’s photographs.” (ILN, 26 September 1863, 303)
Between 1864 and 1867, the two colleagues operated
the infl uential fi rm of ‘Beato and Wirgman, Artists and
Photographers.’ Beato was primarily responsible for
popularising the practice that would become a hallmark
of the Yokohama photographic industry: the hand-co-
loured albumen print. He travelled extensively through-
out Japan, on occasion accompanying ambassadorial
delegations in order to gain access to regions otherwise
restricted to foreigners. Although he continued to serve
as a war photographer, accompanying the punitive ex-
pedition to Shimonoseki in 1864, his topographical and
studio genre work predominated in the 1860s.
On 26 November 1866, a devastating fi re destroyed
Beato’s photographic studio and stock along with most
of Yokohama. This disaster stymied Beato’s desire
to send the Bengal Photographic Society “a set of
views, not only of scenery in Japan, but also of native
portraits in cartes-de-visite, illustrative of the different
dresses, customs, and habits of the people.” (Journal
of the Bengal Photographic Society, March 1867, 25)
Despite this setback, Beato quickly rebuilt his portfolio
and only fi ve months after the fi re, the Bengal Photo-
graphic Society received “an Album of Photographic
views and costumes taken in China and Japan, chiefl y
by Cigni Bento of Yokoham[a].” (JBPS, March 1867,
5) Over the next year, Beato continued to rebuild an
inventory of Japanese ‘views’ and ‘costumes’ published
in various leather-bound album formats, often with the
embossed cover title Vues du Japon or Views of Japan
(Bibliothèque nationale, Paris). One superb example
preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,
and published in 1868 with the title Photographic Views
of Japan by Signor F. Beato, with Historical and De-
scriptive Notes, Compiled from Authentic Sources, and
Personal Observations During a Residence of Several
Years, consists of two volumes containing respectively
101 untinted views and 100 hand-tinted genre subjects.
As the title suggests, a lengthy printed caption accom-
panied each print, attesting to the album’s instructiveBEATO, FELICE
Beato, Felice. Lord Arima’s
Quarters, Edo.
The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Purchase, The Horace
W. Goldsmith Foundation
Gift, 1996 (1996.109.1)
Image © The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.