Julia Jackson

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Artist: Julia Margaret Cameron (English, 1815–1879)
Medium: Albumen print
Size: Image: 27.7 × 22 cm (10 15/16 × 8 11/16 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Julia Margaret Cameron began photographing at age 48, when her daughter and son-in-law gave her a camera for her amusement. She soon made a name for herself with large-format, often allegorical compositions and portraits that defied the conventions of Victorian photography. A typical commercial portrait of the time presented a small standing figure, sharply focused and evenly lit.

By contrast, Cameron's photograph of her niece Julia Jackson concentrates on the subject's head, showing clearly only limited planes of her face and leaving half of it shrouded in shadow. Known as a great beauty, Jackson was a favorite subject for Cameron, who made dozens of photographs of her. In April 1867, a month before Jackson's wedding to her first husband, Herbert Duckworth, Cameron photographed the young bride-to-be. With her hair down and eyes wide, she is unsentimental, looking forward with purpose to her own personal and social transformation.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.