Mrs. Herbert Duckworth
- Date
- 1872
- Material
- Collodion process carbon print
- Classification
- Photographs
- Collection
- Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
- Current Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- image: 13 1/8 x 9 7/8 in. (33.3 x 25.1 cm)
mount: 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 in. (52.4 x 42.2 cm) - Credit Line
- Museum Purchase
- Rights
- Public Domain
- Object Number
- 121:1976
NOTES
A middle-aged woman is framed from the shoulders up. She looks straight forward at the viewer with her hair pulled back while wearing a white bonnet and a dark dress with a white collar. Small white flowers are visible in the otherwise dark background.
This is one of more than 50 photographic portraits that Julia Margaret Cameron made of her niece, Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, who was the mother of novelist Virginia Woolf. Though the photographic processes of the period allowed for more detail, Cameron preferred a soft focus. This placed an emphasis on the broader massings of light and dark and did not detract from her subject's direct and penetrating gaze. In this photograph Cameron was able to capture both the outward likeness and a sense of the inward character of her niece.
This is one of more than 50 photographic portraits that Julia Margaret Cameron made of her niece, Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, who was the mother of novelist Virginia Woolf. Though the photographic processes of the period allowed for more detail, Cameron preferred a soft focus. This placed an emphasis on the broader massings of light and dark and did not detract from her subject's direct and penetrating gaze. In this photograph Cameron was able to capture both the outward likeness and a sense of the inward character of her niece.
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