130
function at a time of few fi rst-hand, European-language
accounts of Japan. Beato not only established the range
of typical subjects and practices followed by his suc-
cessors, but also trained several leading photographers
of the next generation, most notably Kusakabe Kimbei
and Baron Raimund von Stillfried. Although the stu-
dio of F. Beato & Co., located at No. 17 on the Bund,
continued to operate from 1869 until 1877, Beato’s
own photographic activities declined as he delegated
further responsibility for the studio’s operations to his
assistants. Nonetheless, he accompanied the American
naval expedition to Korea as offi cial photographer in
mid-1871, and, despite the meteoric rise of Baron von
Stillfried and other competitors, continued to maintain
a high professional reputation. The traveller Elizabeth
Amy Cathcart Payne could still note in her diary on
8 November 1874: “We also had our photos taken by
Beato, accounted the best photographer in Japan.” (Con-
nie Keat (editor), Amy’s Diaries: The Travel Notes of
Elizabeth Amy Cathcart Payne, 1869–1875, Morwell,
Australia, 1995, 52.)
Yet aside from such occasional photographic activi-
ties, Beato was increasingly preoccupied after 1869 with
other fi nancial projects, culminating in the sale of his
studio and inventory to Stillfried & Andersen in Janu-
ary 1877. A popular resident known for his eccentric
personality, Beato enjoyed the local horse races, game
shooting, and other social pastimes of treaty port life.
During a brief visit to London, he continued to move in
Yokohama circles, dining with “quite a Japanese party”
of former residents on 5 November 1871 (Schmidt,
p.200). He was one of several fi nanciers responsible
for establishing the Grand Hotel in Yokohama and was
regularly caricatured in Wirgman’s illustrated magazine
the Japan Punch. In December 1875, Beato’s ambitions
expanded to the opening of a general store at No. 57,
Yokohama. According to the Japan Herald, this venture
epitomised his entrepreneurial spirit:
Obedient to the command of the new lessee, Mr. F. Beato,
a small army of carpenters took possession, and in a few
weeks, some four in all, had raised a new edifi ce... and
now, in all the glare of bright paint and paper, the new
premises assert themselves to every passer-by as the depôt
of the “Yokohama Trading Company,” where everything,
we are told by the enterprising proprietor, from a gimlet
to a bedstead, from a bottle of gin to a hogshead of claret,
can be had for about half nothing, or for even less, rather
than lose a customer... [Mr. Beato’s] wonderful energy, and
his elasticity of spirit in these dull times, are calculated to
ensure success. He deserves it. (Japan Herald Mail Sum-
mary, 30 December 1875, p.3)
Success, however, remained elusive. In the end, he
lost all his money speculating on the Yokohama silver
exchange, and left Japan on 29 November 1884 with his
passage paid by friends. While such merchant activities
defl ected his attention from the studio, Beato made an
enduring contribution to photography in Japan, estab-
lishing the benchmark in terms of production standards
and themes for subsequent studios.
Five months after his departure from Japan, Beato
was again employed as an expedition photographer ac-
companying General Wolseley’s British campaign to the
Sudan. Although he exhibited the photographs in Febru-
ary 1886 before members of the London and Provincial
Photographic Association, these Sudan photographs
have yet to be identifi ed. At a subsequent meeting of this
society on 4 March 1886, the secretary announced that
“Signor Beatto ... had unexpectedly to leave England for
Burmah on the fi rst of this month.” (British Journal of
Photography, 12 March 1886, p. 167) While the exact
date of Beato’s arrival in Burma remains conjectural,
his prompt departure and expressed destination suggests
that he probably settled there before the end of the year.
The travel account of George Bird supports this sup-
position, affi rming that Beato “arrived in Mandalay in
1886.” (Singer, p. 98) He soon established a successful
studio marketing architectural views, genre subjects, and
other Burmese subjects that furnished the illustrations
for several turn-of-the-century travel accounts. From
1895, the Mandalay studio expanded into an emporium
of Burmese curios, with a branch offi ce at Rangoon
offering ivory carvings, silverware, and other regional
merchandise to tourists and an international ‘mail-order’
clientele. Beato’s various enterprises in Rangoon and
Mandalay continued to prosper into the early twentieth
century, until his fi nal documented listing in Thacker’s
Indian Directory in 1908. He is thought to have died in
Burma about 1908.
Luke GartlanBiography
Despite extensive research in recent decades, the birth
and death details of Felice Beato continue to elude schol-
ars. Current research indicates he was born on Corfu
about 1834 and fi rst trained as an assistant photographer
to his brother-in-law James Robertson in the mid-1850s
in Constantinople (now Istanbul). From 1855, he was
active at the Crimean War and thereafter visited Malta,
Jerusalem, and Egypt, before embarking for Calcutta in
early 1858. Closely associated with the British military
class, he recorded several colonial confl icts including
the aftermath of the Sepoy Rebellion in India (1858) and
the Anglo-French campaign in Northern China (1860).
In the following years, he returned to war photography
joining the military campaigns to Shimonoseki, Japan
(1864), Korea (1871), Sudan (1885) and Burma (1886).
An accomplished topographical and architectural pho-
tographer, excelling in multi-part panoramas, Beato also
had a formative role in establishing the scenic ‘view,’ as