Portraits of Jane Morris · II of II

Jane Morris outdoors against the billowing canopy; this copy (two prints done around 1930, differing in exposition)

As with a number of photographs in the Jane Morris series, at least three copies of this pose survive, one print in the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, this copy (two prints done around 1930, differing in exposition), and another also in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden). Posed by Rossetti, 1865 .

This picture is one of the most remarkable in the series, especially the two prints that are preserved in the Victoria and Albert album. Mrs. Morris is posed outdoors against the backdrop of a billowing canopy, with her hands clasped at her midriff. She is turned facing the camera, though she looks away to the right. The other V&A print [image # 3] is cropped down from the original negative, as is the Birmingham copy. The modern prints shows the composition of the original negative and is far the more dramatic and dynamic image, though the cropped version is also interesting and effective, not least because of certain ghostly internal “framing” effects (these appear on several other of the pictures in the series). The Birmingham print, which is a replica of the cropped version, does not display this framing effect.

This pose is very close in style to another pose also composed outdoors in the marquee [images # 4, 5, and 6].

Jane Morris is posed outdoors against the backdrop of a billowing canopy, with her hands clasped. Modern print (1930s)

Jane Morris standing, in marquee. The older V&A print (1865)

Jane Morris outdoors under a marquee, her body turned to the left, her face turned towards the camera. Modern print (1930s)

This pose is closely related to the previous one in which Mrs. Morris is outdoors under a marquee and against a white backgroup, with her hands clasped at her midriff. In this pose her body is turned to the left but her face is turned directly at the camera. As in the related pose, this exists in two printed states, one that shows a billowing canopy, the other that is cropped close. The cropped print is much less dramatic. The uncropped picture is in fact a modern print made when Gordon Bottomly was putting together the album of photographs that house all of the Victoria and Albert prints.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has two other prints of this picture. The Museum records identify the cropped print as an original, the other as a modern copy. Of course all the copies of the uncropped version ultimately derive from an original 1865 negative, and in fact it is these copies that show the negative’s original compositional structure.

Jane Morris outdoors under a marquee, her body turned to the left, her face turned towards the camera. Cropped version

Jane Morris outdoors against a black backdrop in front of a white cloth

Mrs. Morris standing facing right, outdoors against a black backdrop in front of a white cloth. The image is particularly startling because it contains two ghostly framing areas around Mrs. Morris, as we see in several other prints from this picture series (notably Jane Morris standing, in marquee: two sets of thee images each, discussed previously). These effects were generated subsequent to the shoot. They are due to the deterioration of the wet collodion negatives during handling.

Mrs. Morris, wearing a cape, is standing at a table. The scene is indoors with a window as background. This is the second photograph mounted in the album of Jane Morris Photographs put together in 1933 by Gordon Bottomly.

Mrs. Morris is seated, facing left. The scene is indoors. She is leaning forward over the back of a chair, with her arms clasping the chair. Her eyes are virtually closed.

This is the first print in the album of Jane Morris Photographs put together in 1933 by Gordon Bottomly.

Jane Morris standing outdoors, her back to the camera, her head turned to the right. 1865 print

Mrs. Morris stands outdoors, her back to the camera, her head turned to the right over her shoulder showing her profile. On the wicker chair to her left a shawl is draped. The only background is the garden vegetation, which is out of focus. A copy, cropped and printed darker, is the print made in 1865 [image above].

Jane Morris standing beside wicker chair. This is a modern copy showing the whole of the original compositional structure (1930s print)

Jane Morris outdoors, standing in front of wicker chair

Mrs. Morris outdoors, standing in front of wicker chair and turned at an angle toward the camera. Her hands are at her midriff. The shot is a variation on Jane Morris standing beside wicker chair [the two images previously discussed]. In this picture the shawl lies on the chair seat and is not draped over the chair.

Jane Morris standing with spray of foliage. Print made in 1865

This is a print made in 1865. Mrs. Morris stands outdoors facing right with her head lowered. Her hands, at her midriff, hold a spray of foliage. The only background is the garden vegetation, which is out of focus. A second print [image below], less cropped and printed darker, is identified in museum records as a modern copy made from the 1865 original negative.

Jane Morris standing with spray of foliage. Modern print (ca. 1930)

All images are from the book : Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden) Posed by Rossetti, 1865. Composed by Gordon Bottomly in 1933

source of images V&A Museum

source of text Rossetti Archive

Portraits of Jane Morris · I of II

**John R. Parsons ::** Jane Morris, née Burden, posed by Rossetti, 1865. Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative | V&A

Jane Morris seated, leaning forward with her head turned to the right, resting on her hand, and facing the viewer. DGR posed her in this striking posture and later recurred to the composition in his painting Reverie, done in 1868; the sitter was again Jane Morris.

All images in this post are from: Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden) Posed by Rossetti, 1865. Composed by Gordon Bottomly in 1933
This book is an album of photographic prints that were made from photographs shot by John Parsons under Rossetti’s directions. All the photos seem to have been shot on 7th June 1865 at Rossetti’s house on Cheyne Walk. Most of the shots were taken outdoors, in the garden [where a marquee was set], but two were made indoors in the parlor. Some of the prints are original (dating back from 1865), some were made later as an effort to preserve the images, which were seen to be fading.

**John R. Parsons ::** Jane Burden (Mrs William Morris), posed by Rossetti, 1865. Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative | V&A

Mrs. Morris is seated in a chair, facing right, with her back angled toward the camera. She turns toward the camera over her right shoulder, but is looking vaguely away

This portrait is closely related to two other pictures in the Jane Morris series of photographs: the picture is virtually the mirror image of “Jane Morris seated, half length” [image # 5 in this post], where Mrs. Morris faces left in much the same pose (the latter is also fairly closely cropped); and to “Jane Morris seated, half length” [image # 2 in this post]—a much less closely cropped shot, this one with Mrs. Morris also facing to the left.
DGR used this photograph as the compositional point of departure for the pencil drawing The Roseleaf

Mrs. Morris seated on a plush love seat, virtually full length, body turned to the viewer but her head turned away, facing right; her left hand is drawn up beneath her chin at her throat, her right hand on the love seat as support.

Mrs. Morris is seated, facing left, with her head bent slightly down. Her hands are in her lap. The picture is a much more closely cropped version, in reverse or mirrored state, of image # 3 in this post.

Jane Morris is reclining on a plush loveseat facing right

This is one of three prints made from a single negative. Mrs. Morris is reclining on a plush loveseat facing right with her head resting on a black pillow and turned slightly away from the viewer. Her hands are in her lap and the pose is set against a black backdrop. This print is cropped down like the Victoria and Albert’s 1865 original. Museum records identify the second copy in the V & A as a modern copy of the original. The modern print shows a larger background area that includes part of a canopy and some of its upholding poles.

Jane Morris outdoors, slumped in plush chair facing the camera, under cloth canopy

Mrs. Morris outdoors, slumped in plush chair facing the camera, under cloth canopy. Her left hand is curled back over her left shoulder, her right rests on her knee. Off to the right edge of the picture is visible a chair with a shawl or some sort of drapery thrown over it. A second print, uncropped, is identified in the Victoria and Albert records as a modern print; this is the original (1865) print.

Jane Morris seated in DGR’s garden, in full view, and facing to her right

At least three copies of this pose survive, one in the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, the other two in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden). Posed by Rossetti, 1865 .

The state of the two Victoria and Albert Museum prints tells much about DGR’s involvement with these photographs. In the larger copy [image below] a good deal of space is left around the sitter, who is seated in DGR’s garden, in full view, and facing to her right. A decorated screen is placed a few feet behind her; beyond that is foliage, though it is scarcely discernible as such. The print shows where Gordon Bottomly worked on the original print with a brush to disguise where the top of the print had been damaged during later efforts to mount it.

The smaller print [image above] in the album shows DGR intervening on the original photograph. In this case he has used a brush to paint on the print and smooth out Mrs. Morris’s dress (along the left sleeve and also among the folds by her left leg). The second print also illustrates a characteristic alteration of another kind that one finds in the album prints. This second print is much lighter and has been cropped so that the screen takes up virtually the whole of the background.

This print was made in 1865 and is cropped and printed lighter than the modern print

Mrs. Morris outdoors, seated in wicker chair facing right, with her left hand crossed to grasp the right edge of the chair and her right resting on the edge. A shawl draped across the chair has moved and is out of focus. A modern print [image below] showing the original compositional structure of the photograph is also in the V&A museum. This print was made in 1865 and is cropped and printed lighter than the modern print.

Mrs. Morris outdoors, seated in wicker chair facing right, with her right hand resting on the edge (modern print)

Jane Morris facing right, seated in a wicker chair with her hands in her lap, 3/4 length

Mrs. Morris facing right, seated in a wicker chair with her hands in her lap, three-quater length

All images are from the book : Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden) Posed by Rossetti, 1865. Composed by Gordon Bottomly in 1933

source of images V&A Museum

source of text Rossetti Archive

Nu allongé ca. 1865

Nu allongé se recoiffant, ca. 1865 Tirage sur papier albuminé monté sur carton. | src Tessier Sarrou

Ellen Terry at 16 by Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Sadness, 1863-64 (Shakespearean Actress Dame Ellen Terry, Age 16) | Victoria & Albert Museum — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** Sadness, 1863-64 (Shakespearean Actress Dame Ellen Terry, Age 16) Carbon print from copy negative | Victoria & Albert Museum. Royal Photographic Society. National Media Museum

Circular-shaped photograph of a standing woman, shown in profile from the waist up. Her head is leaning against an interior patterned wall and one of her hands is placed at her throat tugging at her necklace.

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen, 1864. Carbon print. LL/6758 — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen, 1864. Carbon print. | src Luminous Lint: LL/6758

Julia Margaret Cameron :: [Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen] negative 1864; print about 1875. Carbon print. | The J. Paul Getty Museum — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** [Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen] negative 1864; print about 1875. Carbon print. | The J. Paul Getty Museum

This image of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) is one of the few known photographs of a female celebrity by Julia Margaret Cameron. Terry, the popular child actress of the British stage, was sixteen years old when Cameron made this image. This photograph was most likely taken just after she married the eccentric painter, George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), who was thirty years her senior. They spent their honeymoon in the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight where Cameron resided.

Terry came from a theatrical family and had her stage debut at age nine. In 1862 she was introduced to Watts, who painted a double portrait of her with her elder sister Kate. In a union engineered by Cameron and her own sisters, Terry and Watts were married on February 20, 1864, when she was just sixteen. Within a year the couple had separated; they were formally divorced in 1877.

The pair spent their honeymoon at Freshwater, and most likely it was at this time that the portrait was made. While the possibility exists that Terry, as an actress, was striking a pose for Cameron, the picture’s title suggests the realization of a mismatched marriage. Terry’s anxiety is plainly evident—she leans against an interior wall and tugs nervously at her necklace. The lighting is notably subdued, leaving her face shadowed in doubt. In The Story of My Life (1909), Terry recalls how demanding Watts was, calling upon her to sit for hours as a model and giving her strict orders not to speak in front of distinguished guests in his studio.

Cameron’s uncertain technique is evidenced by the image loss at the lower center of the picture, where the collodion emulsion peeled away from the glass-plate negative. She must have created only a single negative at this sitting, since she presented this particular print as is in the Overstone Album. The negative was later rephotographed (with the damage repaired) and distributed commercially as a carbon print by the Autotype Company of London (see image above). This later version was also reproduced in 1913 in Alfred Stieglitz’s Camerawork. (*)

Cameron’s portrait echoes Watt’s study of Terry titled Choosing (1864, National Portrait Gallery, London). As in the painting, Terry is shown in profile with her eyes closed, an ethereal beauty in a melancholic dream state. In this guise, Terry embodies the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of womanhood rather than appearing as the wild boisterous teenager she was known to be. The round (“tondo”) format of this photograph was popular among Pre-Raphaelite artists. (*)

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Sadness, a study of Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928), 1864. Inscribed recto mount in ink "FreshWater, inside cottage" and dated. Albumen silver print. | The J. Paul Getty Museum — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** *Sadness*, a study of Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928), 1864. Inscribed recto mount in ink “FreshWater, inside cottage” and dated. Albumen silver print. | The J. Paul Getty Museum

Cameron titled another print of this image Sadness (see image above), which may suggest the realization of a mismatched marriage. Terry’s anxiety is plainly evident—she leans against an interior wall and tugs nervously at her necklace. The lighting is notably subdued, leaving her face shadowed in doubt. In The Story of My Life (1909), Terry recalls how demanding Watts was, calling upon her to sit for hours as a model and giving her strict orders not to speak in front of distinguished guests in his studio.

This particular version was printed eleven years after Cameron first made the portrait. In order to distribute this image commercially, the Autotype Company of London rephotographed the original negative after the damage had been repaired. The company then made new prints using the durable, non-fading carbon print process. Thus, this version is in reverse compared to Sadness. Terry’s enduring popularity is displayed by the numerous photographs taken of her over the years. (*)

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Ellen Terry, at the age of sixteen, 1864 (taken) 1913 (ca, print). Carbon print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Accession Number: 49.55.323 — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** Ellen Terry, at the age of sixteen, 1864 (taken) 1913 (ca, print). Carbon print. | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Actress Ellen Terry, 27th February 1864. | Guy Little Theatrical Photographs V&AM — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** Actress Ellen Terry, 27th February 1864. | Guy Little Theatrical Photographs V&AM

(*) quotations are from The J. Paul Getty Museum, links can be followed from the captions of image 5 and 6 of this post

Chateau Chillon sur le lac Leman

(*) Photo des Frères Bisson Louis-Auguste Bisson (French, 1814–1876) et Artist: Auguste-Rosalie Bisson (French, 1826–1900)

Bisson Frères (*) :: Chateau Chillon sur le lac Leman, Suisse, 19ème siècle (detail). | src Proantic — **Bisson Frères (*) ::** Chateau Chillon sur le lac Leman, Suisse, 19ème siècle (detail). | src Proantic

A Cameron card and the original

"Summer Days" (1866) by Julia Margaret Cameron. Postcard — Marni Sandweiss (Amon Carter Museum) postcard sent to Carlotta Corpron. January 28, 1981. From Carlotta Corpron Papers
The photograph is a reproduction of “Summer Days” (c. 1866) by Julia Margaret Cameron printed by George Eastman House.
Back of the postcard is viewable here as a pdf file

Julia Margaret Cameron :: 'Summer Days', ca. 1866. Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative. A photograph of two young women (May Prinsep and Mary Ryan) wearing straw hats, two young children (Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown) are seated in front. | V&A — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** ‘Summer Days’, ca. 1866. Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative. A photograph of two young women (May Prinsep and Mary Ryan) wearing straw hats, two young children (Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown) are seated in front. | V&A Museum

In late 1865, Julia Margaret Cameron began using a larger camera. It held a 15 x 12 inch glass negative, rather than the 12 x 10 inch negative of her first camera. Early the next year she wrote to Henry Cole with great enthusiasm – but little modesty – about the new turn she had taken in her work.

Cameron initiated a series of large-scale, closeup heads that fulfilled her photographic vision. She saw them as a rejection of ‘mere conventional topographic photography – map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form’ in favour of a less precise but more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture. Cameron also continued to make narrative and allegorical tableaux, which were larger and bolder than her previous efforts.

Cameron’s ability to capture large groups improved with experience as well as with the use of her new, larger lens. Her friend and photographic advisor, the scientist Sir John Herschel, wrote that this picture was ‘very beautiful, and the grouping perfect.’ quoted from V&A

Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris

Le ciel de l'horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 29 Mars [detail] | BnF · Gallica — Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 29 Mars [detail] | BnF · Gallica

Le ciel de l'horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 29 Mars
From: Le ciel: notions d'astronomie à l'usage des gens du monde et de la jeunesse par Amédée Guillemin, Hachette, 1864. — Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 29 Mars
From: Le ciel: notions d’astronomie à l’usage des gens du monde et de la jeunesse par Amédée Guillemin, Hachette, 1864.

Le ciel de l'horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 22 Septembre | BnF · Gallica — Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 22 Septembre | BnF · Gallica

Le ciel de l'horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 20 Décembre [detail] | BnF · Gallica — Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 20 Décembre [detail] | BnF · Gallica

Le ciel de l'horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 20 Décembre. From: Le ciel: notions d'astronomie à l'usage des gens du monde et de la jeunesse par Amédée Guillemin, Hachette, 1864. — Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris (Côté Sud ) vu à Minuit le 20 Décembre
From: Le ciel: notions d’astronomie à l’usage des gens du monde et de la jeunesse par Amédée Guillemin, Hachette, 1864.

Cameron’s “very first success”

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Annie Philpot (1857-1936), Freshwater, Isle of Wight, England, January 1864. — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** Annie Philpot (1857-1936), Freshwater, Isle of Wight, England, January 1864. Albumen silver print.

Annie; Julia Margaret Cameron (British, born India, 1815 - 1879); January 1864; Albumen silver print; 17.9 × 14.3 cm (7 1/16 × 5 5/8 in.); 84.XZ.186.69; No Copyright - United States (http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/) — **Julia Margaret Cameron** (British, born India, 1815 – 1879) :: Annie; January 1864. Albumen silver print.

Julia Margaret Cameron :: Annie / "My very first success in Photography January 1864", January 1864. Albumen silver print. — **Julia Margaret Cameron ::** Annie / “My very first success in Photography January 1864”, January 1864. Albumen silver print.
Getty Open Content Program

In December 1863 Julia Margaret Cameron received the gift of a wooden box camera from her only daughter, Julia, and her son-in-law Charles Norman. She was forty-eight years old, a woman whose prodigious energies had been centered on raising her six children. Now, with her daughter married and her husband and three eldest sons away on her family coffee estates in Ceylon, she found herself at a transitional moment in her life. Taking up photography at this time, she began, in her own words “to arrest all beauty that came before me.”

Cameron’s retrospective written account of her career in photography, Annals of My Glass House (penned in 1874 and published posthumously in 1889), stresses the solitary nature of her early experiments: “I began with no knowledge of the art. I did not know where to place my dark box, how to focus my sitter, and my first picture I effaced to my consternation by rubbing my hand over the filmy side of the glass.” Despite this proclamation, Cameron may have already learned the basics of camera operation and chemistry from Oscar Gustave Rejlander, with whom she shared many mutual friends, most importantly Alfred Tennyson, her neighbor on the Isle of Wight. Another likely early tutor was her brother-in-law Lord Somers, an accomplished amateur photographer who made portraits of Cameron’s family circle.

After some three weeks of experimentation in the January cold of her studio at her home in Freshwater, Cameron created this portrait of Annie Philpot (1857-1936), the daughter of a local resident. She later recalled the circumstances surrounding its creation in Annals of My Glass House: “I was in transport of delight. I ran all over the house to search for gifts for the child. I felt as if she entirely had made the picture. I printed, toned, fixed and framed it, and presented it to her father that same day.” Cameron carefully trimmed this particular print for presentation in an album given to Lord Overstone in 1865. It is a picture of great simplicity and grace, conspicuously divided in terms of light and dark. The out-of-focus background and deep shadows around the model’s eyes were acceptable to Cameron, indicating that from the outset her criteria for “success” were notably out of step with convention. She proudly inscribed the picture’s mount “My very first success in photography.”

Dialogues: 1860s-1920s-1940s

Eugène Cuvelier :: Près de la Caverne, Terrain Brûlé, early 1860s. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Met — **Eugène Cuvelier ::** Près de la Caverne, Terrain Brûlé, early 1860s. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Met

“An atypical work for the naturalistically inclined Cuvelier, this highly Romantic image of two people sitting below the skeletons of burned pine trees and looking into the featureless distance like the contemplative figures in the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, was no doubt a response to the startling sight of the charred landscape.” | quoted from The Met

Adolf Rossi :: On a frozen lake, 1946. Vintage gelatin silver print | Sign. Adolf Rossi a Easter Cape International Salon of Photography. 6th C. P. A. International Salon 1965, Hong Kong | src Prague Auctions — **Adolf Rossi ::** On a frozen lake, 1946. Vintage gelatin silver print | Sign. Adolf Rossi a Easter Cape International Salon of Photography. 6th C. P. A. International Salon 1965, Hong Kong | src Prague Auctions

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

“Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

Life is merely a fracas on an unmapped terrain, and the universe a geometry stricken with epilepsy. ― Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay (1949)

Category: 1860s

Portraits of Jane Morris · II of II

Portraits of Jane Morris · I of II

Nu allongé ca. 1865

Ellen Terry at 16 by Cameron

Chateau Chillon sur le lac Leman

Le ciel de l’horizon de Paris

Cameron’s “very first success”

Dialogues: 1860s-1920s-1940s

‘Cassiopea’, 1866

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