The chronology is an edited version of that published in Hight, Felice Beato in Nineteenth-Century Japan (The Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire, 2011), pp. 52-53.
The emphasis in this chronology is on Beato’s time in Japan. It is especially indebted to the publications of John Clark, Sebastian Dobson, Anne Lacoste, and Terry Bennett.
1832 Born in Venice, Italy.
1834 Birth of brother Antonio. Around this time family moves to Corfu, a British protectorate. Beato later becomes a naturalized British citizen; often uses the name Felix Beato.
1844 Beato now living with his family in Constantinople (Istanbul).
1851 Beato reports (in 1886) that he bought a French lens in Paris for 25 francs.
1855 April 19, James Robertson (1813-1888), an English photographer working in Constantinople, marries Beato’s sister, Leonilda Maria Matilda. Around this time, the Beato brothers begin working with Robertson. Robertson replaces Roger Fenton as the official photographer for the British military in the Crimea.
1856 April to July, works in the Crimea for Robertson. Beato brothers possibly work in Malta with Robertson.
1857 Works with Robertson and Antonio in various locations in the Holy Land, Syria, Egypt, and Greece.
1858 February 13, arrives in Calcutta, India, to photograph sites of the Indian Revolt (Indian Mutiny) of 1856-57. Travels through India making photographs of architectural sites.
1859 Continues working in India photographing architectural sites.
1860 February 26, sails for China. Meets Charles Wirgman, the British artist and correspondent for the Illustrated London News (ILN). They work for Sir James Hope Grant, the British commander, during the final campaign of the Second Opium War. December, Beato and Wirgman are in Hong Kong.
1861 Travels to England; sells 400 photographs of India and China to Henry Hering, Regent’s Street, London.
1862 Hering exhibits Beato’s photographs.
1863 April 27, Swiss diplomat Aimé Humbert arrives in Yokohama. May, Beato travels with Wirgman to Hong Kong. May 22, Beato and Wirgman leave Hong Kong for Shanghai. June 21, Wirgman is back in Yokohama. July 13, Wirgman reports in ILN (issue of Sept. 12, 1863) that Beato is with him in Yokohama, where Beato would live for the next twenty-one years. August, Humbert stays with Wirgman in Yokohama. Beato and Wirgman travel with Humbert.
1864 Beato and Wirgman register their business in Yokohama as “Beato & Wirgman, Artists and Photographers.” August-September, Beato and Wirgman join a British naval expedition to Shimonoseki. November 20, murder of two British officers, Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird, near Kamakura. December, Beato and Wirgman witness the execution of the alleged murderer.
1865 June, travels to Nagasaki and photographs various sites. July, travels to Shanghai.
1866 November 26, Beato’s studio burns in the Great Fire of Yokohama, and most of his inventory is lost.
1867 Partnership between Beato and Wirgman ends. Beato joins Freemasons Yokohama Lodge No. 1092 (founded in June of the preceding year). Travels to Shanghai with his assistant, Kusakabe Kimbei. Mid-December, is back in Yokohama.
1868 Begins selling albums of photographs, with letterset text on the page opposite each photograph. Moves his studio to No. 24a, Yokohama.
1870 Moves studio to No. 17, Bund (on the harbor of Yokohama). Illustrations based on Beato’s photographs and Wirgman’s drawings appear in Humbert’s book, Le Japon illustré.
1871 May-June, Beato and his assistant Woollett (spelled various ways) join an American Naval expedition to Korea. July 5, typhoon hits Kobe. Beato and Woollett stop in Kobe and Osaka. July 12, they leave for Yokohama. Two weeks later, Beato returns to Kobe. July 29, Beato advertises photographs from Osaka and Hiogo, and “the disasters in Kobe” in the Hiogo News.
1872 April-June, exhibition in Kyoto and foreigners are allowed to visit; Beato goes to Kobe at this time. October 14, the first railway in Japan opens between Yokohama and Tokyo, and Beato makes photographs of it.
1873 Assumes the position of Counsel-general of Greece in Japan (in 1864 Greece had obtained control of Corfu, where Beato had lived as a youth). August 16, the Grand Hotel opens on the Bund next door to Beato’s studio; Beato was an original investor in the hotel. Listed as “merchant” in the Freemasons Lodge.
1874 Humbert’s book, Japan and the Japanese Illustrated, the English translation of Le Japon illustré (1870), is published in London and New York. Financial woes lead to several cases in court.
1875 Registers as a merchant with H. Englehardt. Accused of having thrown a plate at his cook and is fined by the British magistrate.
1776 Listed as “merchant” at No. 37.
1877 January 23, sells studio and inventory to Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz and Hermann Andersen whose studio burned less than two weeks before. Continues to work as a merchant, now at No. 57.
1878 Moves business to No. 24b; private residence now at No. 5.
1880 Travels to London. December, office in Yokohama burns down. Kusakabe Kimbei opens studio.
1882 James Robertson moves to Yokohama with his family.
1884 Beato loses all his money on the Yokohama silver exchange. November 29, leaves Japan for good. Travels to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Egypt.
1885 Travels to Sudan to photograph the Anglo-Sudan War (Sudanese Madhist Revolt). Makes photographs of the aftermath and sites in Sudan. Prints negatives in Egypt (in Luxor where brother Antonio lives?). Travels to London to sell Sudan images. In Yokohama, Stillfried and Andersen sell their studio and inventory, including Beato’s stock, to the Italian photographer Adolfo Farsari. Some of Beato’s negatives are sold to Kusakabe Kimbei.
1886 February 18, gives a talk on his photographic techniques to the London and Provincial Photographic Society; February 26, report of this talk appears in The British Journal of Photography. Adolfo Farsari loses his studio, along with Beato’s negatives, in a fire.
1888 April 18, James Robertson dies in Yokohama. May, Beato travels to Burma. Takes over the photography studio of D’Silva and establishes an export business in Mandalay, Burma.
1891 February 8, Wirgman dies in Yokohama.
1895 Listed in Mandalay, Burma, as a photographer and curio dealer.
1896 Opens a branch of his curio business in Rangoon.
1898 Sells his curio shop, but new owners keep the name “F. Beato & Co. Ld.”
1906 Antonio Beato dies in Luxor, Egypt.
1909 January 29, Felice Beato dies in Florence, Italy.