Artwork Page for North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin

Details / Information for North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin

North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin

Album von China

1860
photographer

Felice A. Beato

(British, 1832–1909)
Culture
China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
Medium
Albumen print
Measurements
Image: 25 x 58.4 cm (9 13/16 x 23 in.); Mount: 36.8 x 41.8 cm (14 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund 2026.57
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

Felice Beato was the first photographer to show the human cost of war: the corpses of fallen soldiers.

Description

Beato was invited in February 1860 to travel to China to accompany British troops and photograph the concluding events of the Second Opium War. The works in this album are the earliest images that document the progress of a military campaign through a sequence of dated and related photographs. Part of that story, for Beato, were the corpses of the Chinese soldiers who had been killed by European troops. The album also contains the first photographs of Beijing.
A horizontally oriented sepia-toned photograph, joined by a central vertical seam, depicts a massive brick fortification. To the right, a large, four-story building with a wide, tiered roof sits atop a wall corner, featuring rows of dark rectangular openings. The wall recedes toward the far left, punctuated by distant square towers. In the foreground, a calm waterway curves around a wide, grassy bank that slopes up to the wall’s base.

North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin

1860

Felice A. Beato

(British, 1832–1909)
China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

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