Interior and Arches of the Temple of Heaven Where the Emperor Sacrifices Once a Year, in the Chinese City of Pekin, October 1860
1860
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image: 23.2 × 28.7 cm (9 1/8 × 11 5/16 in.) mount: 24.7 × 30.8 cm (9 3/4 × 12 1/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Michael and Jane Wilson
Accession Number
2012.137.1.16
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Step into the serene yet historically charged world of Felice Beato's *Interior and Arches of the Temple of Heaven Where the Emperor Sacrifices Once a Year, in the Chinese City of Pekin, October 1860*. This striking albumen print captures the grand architectural interior of Beijing's iconic Temple of Heaven, a UNESCO World Heritage site where Chinese emperors performed annual rituals to pray for bountiful harvests. Beato, a pioneering British-Italian photographer renowned for his vivid documentation of 19th-century Asia, immortalizes the temple's elegant arches and vast space with remarkable clarity. Created amid the turmoil of the Second Opium War, this image dates to October 1860, just as Anglo-French forces occupied Beijing following their victory over Qing Dynasty troops. Beato was on the front lines, one of the earliest war photographers to produce on-site images, offering a rare Western glimpse into forbidden imperial spaces amid the conflict's chaos—including the infamous sacking of the nearby Summer Palace. The albumen print medium, coated with egg whites for its luminous tones and fine detail, exemplifies mid-19th-century photography's technical leap, allowing intricate textures like stone carvings to shine. At 23.2 × 28.7 cm, this intimate yet evocative work, now in the National Gallery of Art thanks to Michael and Jane Wilson, bridges art and history, inviting us to reflect on cultural reverence clashing with colonial intrusion.
About the Artist
Felice Beato · 1832–1909
Felice Beato (c. 1832–1909), an Italian-born photographer who became a British subject through his family's residence on the British protectorate island of Corfu, emerged as one of the pioneering figures in war and travel photography. Born in Venice or Corfu to a Venetian noble family with roots in Corfu, Beato's early life remains somewhat obscure, but he acquired his first photographic lens in P...