Beato, Felice "Yokohama, Native Town" (partial... Lot 4003

Beato, Felice "Yokohama, Native Town" (partial view of the old part of Yokohama) and "Boats and Junks", Yokohama. Circa 1864. 2 albumen prints. 20,3 x 28,4 cm and 22,8 x 28,2 cm. Each mounted to card, each annotated in ink below the image on the mount. The image of Yokohama, Native Town is one of the earliest photographs of Yokohama, showing it before the fire of November 1866. The same applies to the second photo, which shows typical Japanese ships of the time in a very unusual form. Beato settled in Japan in 1863, where he was assigned to the British naval forces, which joined the French, Dutch and Americans in conducting a punitive expedition to Shimonoseki. In 1866, a great fire destroyed part of the foreign settlement of Yokohama, including Beato's studio. Beato lost much of his photographic work and most of his early negatives. For this reason, the photos offered here are extremely rare.