Angle of Taku Fort at which the French entered (1860): Art, History and Details

Angle of Taku Fort at which the French entered (1860) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Felice A. Beato (British, 1832–1909).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Beato’s photographs of the Second Opium War are believed to be the first that captured a military campaign in progress. Within that project, an extended sequence of photographs of the Taku Forts—to which this image belongs—exemplify the idea of creating a narrative recreation of the battle, a process that would later be followed by American photographers documenting the Civil War.

Object facts

• Title: Angle of Taku Fort at which the French entered
• Date: 1860
• Creator attribution: Felice A. Beato (British, 1832–1909)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print from collodion negative
• Dimensions: Image: 23.1 x 29.1 cm (9 1/8 x 11 7/16 in.); Paper: 23.1 x 29.1 cm (9 1/8 x 11 7/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2022.34

A detail from the museum

Felice Beato was one of the pioneers of war photography.

Collection credit

Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.