Julia Jackson Duckworth (1846-1895)

Description

Julia Jackson, the artist’s niece, namesake, goddaughter, and favorite model, is shown at age 21, a few weeks before her wedding. Cameron’s usual soft focus here imparts a sense of becoming, appropriate to this important transformation in a Victorian woman’s life. The daringly modern frontal close-up suggests reflection and self-questioning more characteristic of peering into a mirror than posing before a camera. These two images are from a series of four works based on the same negative, each posited by scholars to be a reversal of the preceding image. Reversing the images alters the face, suggesting that Cameron valued recording Jackson’s inner life more than capturing her likeness. Cameron advanced the photographic portrait from commerce to art and from physiognomic depiction to evocation of a sitter’s soul.

Provenance

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Julia Jackson Duckworth (1846-1895)

Julia Margaret Cameron

1867

Accession Number

1996.343

Medium

albumen print from wet collodion negative

Dimensions

Image: 28.4 x 22.4 cm (11 3/16 x 8 13/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)

Classification

Photograph

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Mann