Japonais et Japonaises — Dans l’atelier photographique de Felice Beato à Yokohama

Published as issue No. 12 of Le Cabinet de l’Amateur by the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, this slim but exquisite volume offers a rare view into 19th-century Japan as seen through the theatrical, often mythologizing lens of Felice Beato. One of the earliest Western photographers to work in East Asia, Beato constructed a vision of Japan that still echoes in the Western imagination today—composed of grace, silence, and stylized exoticism.

Far from a neutral reportage, these 60 photographs—some hand-colored, others stark in monochrome—capture the elegance of gestures, the symbolism of kimonos, and the performativity of identity. Warriors, dancers, artisans and women in domestic scenes appear not just as subjects but as archetypes—filtered through Beato’s lens and tinted by colonial-era fascination.

Technical Sheet

• Object: Exhibition Catalogue / Photographic Booklet
• Title: Japonais et Japonaises — Dans l’atelier photographique de Felice Beato à Yokohama
• Author / Editor: Thierry Laps
• Photographer: Felice Beato
• Date: 2016
• Technique: Reproductions of hand-colored and black & white albumen prints
• Medium / Materials: Softcover, saddle-stitched with printed paper band
• Language: French
• Pages: 16
• Illustrations: 60
• Publisher / Editor: Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg
• ISBN: 9782351251423
• Condition: NEW
• Provenance: Darwin Collection