ANTONIO BEATO, Exhibition Fortuny Palace, Venice

ongoing

ANTONIO BEATO:

I return to Venice

From 15 October to 12 January 2026

Fortuny Palace

San Marco 3958, , Venice

Closed today: open tomorrow at 10:00

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When the British photographer Francis Frith (1822-1898) reached the historic site of Abu Simbel during his first trip to Egypt, from September 1856 to July 1857, the Venetian brothers and photographers Antonio Beato and Felice Beato were traveling in the Mediterranean towards the Middle East, moving between Egypt, Turkey, and the Holy Land. The two had already documented the hostilities of the Crimean War (1853-1856) and shortly after, together or separately, they would photograph the Indian population's revolt against the British Empire and the Second Opium War. While representing a typical cultural expression of nineteenth-century travelers, their photographic campaigns go beyond the spirit of the Grand Tour. One might wonder what drove these two "Venetians" to undertake their long journeys for the purpose of photography. What were the motivations for traveling to remote places and tackling photographic projects as surprising as they were innovative? Around 1860, Antonio Beato arrived from China to Cairo, "the mother of cities," as Ibn Battuta had defined it, and for almost forty years he created, with meticulous details and a keen eye for composition, a series of extraordinary images of the temples and archaeological sites of Egypt, the sophisticated architecture of the Citadel of Cairo, the dynamic complexity of the Mamluk buildings, and the surrounding landscapes. Printed individually or in delightful albums with photographs also by Félix Bonfils, Adelphoi Zangaki, or Pascal Sébah, these images became objects of an Orient only imaginable, which a predominantly European elite was eager to acquire. This marked the advent of documentary photography and is likely to have been fundamental in developing the study of early Islamic architecture. Around two hundred years after the birth of Antonio Beato and on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the first and so far only Venetian exhibition dedicated to the two brothers (Ikona Gallery), it seems appropriate to bring back the work of this important photographer in his region of origin. One of the objectives of the exhibition is to fill this gap by presenting a group of Beato's photographs identified in the archives of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and in other Italian and international collections. The exhibition will illustrate the multifaceted cultural and political implications inherent in those images, going beyond traditional interpretations. It will examine the interrelationship between the architectural and contextual elements associated with the photographed objects, and a careful selection of nineteenth-century books will offer visitors a broader cultural context.

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Artsupp Card: museum + exhibitions 10.00 €

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DEMOCRACY THROUGH LAW

Doge's Palace in Venice, Venice

	opens - closes	last entry
monday	24:00 - 24:00
tuesday	Closed now
wednesday	10:00 - 18:00
thursday	10:00 - 18:00
friday	10:00 - 18:00
saturday	10:00 - 18:00
sunday	10:00 - 18:00

ANTONIO BEATO:

I return to Venice

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