Felice Beato photographed Samurai in the 1860s and hand-colored the prints. According to Getty, he "made hundreds of ethnographic portraits and genre scenes in Japan. He eventually opened a furniture and curio business in Burma." You can download high-resolution copies of his work at Getty.edu. Paul Gallagher of Dangerous Minds wrote about Beato and included several of his remarkable photos of Japan in a time of transition.
Among his first photographs were the portraits of the Satsuma samurais, who happily posed for him. In one group portrait, four samurais symbolically show their strength and ambition by presenting themselves with one standing samurai holding a red book of English literature and one seated with an unsheathed knife—highlighting their hold on western knowledge and their strength in Japanese tradition. As travel became restricted because of the civil war, Beato opened a studio back in Yokohama, where he photographed many samurai warriors and their courtesans.
A selection of Felice Beato’s rare hand-colored photographs will be on display at the London Photographic Fair 23rd-24th May.
