Julia Margaret Cameron 1815-1879

albumen print with arched top, on a gilt-ruled Colnaghi mount, signed and annotated 'from life Registered Photograph Copyright' and inscribed, signed and dated 'A token of affectionate friendship to Mr. Harrison from Julia Margaret Cameron--Aug 27th 75' by the photographer in ink and with the Colnaghi blindstamp on the mount, matted, 1872, printed no later than August 1875

Private California Collection

Hans P. Kraus Jr., Inc., New York, 2003

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the above, 2003

Other prints of this image:

Julian Cox and Colin Ford, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), cat. no. 316 (variant oval format)

Sylvia Wolf, Julia Margaret Cameron's Women (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 62 (variant oval format)

Mike Weaver, Julia Margaret Cameron 1815-1879 (The John Hansard Gallery, The University, Southampton, 1984, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 51, titled 'A Beautiful Vision' (variant rectangular format)

Violet Hamilton, Annals of My Glass House, Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron (Scripps College, Claremont, California, 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 4 (variant rectangular format)

Helmut Gernsheim, Julia Margaret Cameron (Aperture, 1975), p. 89 (variant rectangular format)

Graham Ovenden, Pre-Raphaelite Photography (London, 1972), pl. 46 (variant rectangular format)

The model, Julia Duckworth, mother of author Virginia Woolf, was one of Cameron's most photographed subjects.  She posed frequently for Cameron, as well as other prominent artists of the day, including Frederic Watts and Edward Burne-Jones.  The most well-known depiction of Duckworth in a Pre-Raphaelite painting is in Burne-Jones's 1876 painting The Annunciation, where Duckworth is portrayed as the Virgin Mary.  The portrait offered here was taken in 1872, during Julia's period of mourning for her first husband Herbert Duckworth.  It is likely that this print was given to 'Mr. Harrison' shortly before Cameron's departure for Sri Lanka.  The identity of Harrison is unknown.

Another print of this image, located at the Royal Photographic Society, now at Bradford, is titled A Beautiful Vision by the photographer on the mount.  This title is also used in Mike Weaver's book Julia Margaret Cameron 1815-1879, where the aforementioned print is illustrated.

In Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs, Julian Cox and Colin Ford locate 8 other albumen prints and 3 carbon prints made from this negative.  Of these 11 photographs, none are in the arch-topped format of the photograph offered here.  The present photograph is not accounted for in the Getty census.  Other images from this sitting are Cox cat. nos. 317 and 318, and similar studies are cat. nos. 319-330.