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JULIA MARGARET CAMERON
(1815-1879)
Portrait of Kate Keown.
Circular albumen print, the image
measuring 11
3
/
8
inches (28.9 cm.) in diameter, the mount 20
3
/
4
x16
7
/
8
inches (52.7x42.9 cm.), with a gilt rule and an embossed Colnaghi stamp
on mount recto. 1866
[50,000/75,000]
From the Neikrug Gallery, NewYork, NewYork; to Frances and Donald Werner,
NewYork, circa 1975.
A stunning print by Cameron in a scarce circular format. Cameron’s circular prints
were known as “tondos” (from the Italian rotondo or “round”) and reference both
Renaissance work and the Pre-Raphaelite paintings of her contemporaries.
This poetic work was the one of the first “life-sized heads” Cameron executed with a new
larger-format camera and trimmed to the circular shape.Although Cameron’s pictorial style
continued to embody an inherent romanticism, this enlarged print size allowed her to render
a subject more dramatically and pursue an investigation of the effects of sculptural lighting
on her subject’s faces. Her reliance on soft focus, intimate perspective, and slight movement
imbue these portraits with startling life and spiritual resonance. She wrote in 1866, “I
have just been
engaged
in that which Mr. Watts has always been urging me to do. A
Series of Life sized heads—they are not only
from
the Life, but
to the Life
, and startle
the eye with wonder & delight.” (Cox 64-65).
In
Julia Margaret Cameron:The Complete Photographs
(J. Paul Getty Museum, cat.
no. 875), scholar Julian Cox locates a carte-de-visite version of this
portrait, a reduced albumen print in the Isle of Wight County
Council Miniature Album, a print at the Yale Unversity
Beinecke Library, and a large-format print in the Gilman
Collection (which is now at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, NewYork).