The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of November 5, 2026

A horizontally oriented sepia-toned photograph, joined by a central vertical seam, depicts a massive brick fortification. To the right, a large, four-story building with a wide, tiered roof sits atop a wall corner, featuring rows of dark rectangular openings. The wall recedes toward the far left, punctuated by distant square towers. In the foreground, a calm waterway curves around a wide, grassy bank that slopes up to the wall’s base.

North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin

1860
photographer

Felice A. Beato

(British, 1832–1909)
China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
Albumen print
Image: 25 x 58.4 cm (9 13/16 x 23 in.); Mount: 36.8 x 41.8 cm (14 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2026.57
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Felice Beato was the first photographer to show the human cost of war: the corpses of fallen soldiers.

Description

Beato was invited in February 1860 to travel to China to accompany British troops and photograph the concluding events of the Second Opium War. The works in this album are the earliest images that document the progress of a military campaign through a sequence of dated and related photographs. Part of that story, for Beato, were the corpses of the Chinese soldiers who had been killed by European troops. The album also contains the first photographs of Beijing.
  • -October 8, 2026
    Stephan Loewentheil, New York, NY, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art
    October 8, 2026-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • {{cite web|title=North and East Corner of the Wall of Pekin|url=false|author=Felice A. Beato|year=1860|access-date=05 November 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2026.57