PUBLIC MARKS with tags "felice beato" & photography

These photos of men and women from different walks of life catered to foreign curiosity about the "exotic" Japanese. Most were taken in Beato's studio in Yokohama. Album courtesy of the Smith College Museum of Art.

A selection from a series of 42 hand coloured albumine prints – a process which used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper – taken around 1880. The presence of the pictures in the Dutch National Archieff reflects a long relationship between Japan and the Netherlands, the result of an exclusive commercial relationship that would last for more than two centuries (1641-1855).