Lot Essay
Including portraits of a Burmese Princess, a 'Shan Beauty', Burmese dancing girls, one photograph showing girls dancing for the Duke of Clarence, Kachin women, 'Our Interpretor's wife', 'Rebecca at the well'; the funeral procession of 'Maloon', Princess of Minelon; Hpongyi monks posed on the steps of their monastery; a group portrait of Phorigyees; a street scene; and general views of Mandalay with the '450 Pagodas', the palace and its garden, the 'The-ha-thana' or Lion Throne, the East wall of the city and The Golden Monastery in Kyaung. Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, visited Burma in 1889.
The Anglo-Italian photographer and entrepreneur, Felice Beato, arrived in Burma soon after the fall of Mandalay in 1885. He opened a photographic studio and shop there and in Rangoon, selling local furniture and crafts. One of the most talented and active of nineteenth century travel photographers, he first came to prominence when he partnered James Robertson between 1853 and 1857 when they arrived in India. Here they were in the forefront of recording the devastating effects of the Mutiny of 1857 in the area around Delhi, Lucknow and Agra.
Beato travelled to China with the British forces in 1860, and again documented the topography and destruction associated with war, when the British sacked the Summer Palace at Peking. From China, he progressed to Japan, where in 1864, he quickly became the most influential photographer, combining his talent for topographical views with fine photographs of 'types' and genre studies showing something of everyday life in Japan. He continued to work in a similar vein after his move to Burma. The last record of his activity in India is of his contributing to the Indian exhibition in Delhi in 1904.
See also lots 301, 302, 309-315, 350.
The Anglo-Italian photographer and entrepreneur, Felice Beato, arrived in Burma soon after the fall of Mandalay in 1885. He opened a photographic studio and shop there and in Rangoon, selling local furniture and crafts. One of the most talented and active of nineteenth century travel photographers, he first came to prominence when he partnered James Robertson between 1853 and 1857 when they arrived in India. Here they were in the forefront of recording the devastating effects of the Mutiny of 1857 in the area around Delhi, Lucknow and Agra.
Beato travelled to China with the British forces in 1860, and again documented the topography and destruction associated with war, when the British sacked the Summer Palace at Peking. From China, he progressed to Japan, where in 1864, he quickly became the most influential photographer, combining his talent for topographical views with fine photographs of 'types' and genre studies showing something of everyday life in Japan. He continued to work in a similar vein after his move to Burma. The last record of his activity in India is of his contributing to the Indian exhibition in Delhi in 1904.
See also lots 301, 302, 309-315, 350.