Lady Hawarden was the first woman photographer to gain critical recognition, receiving awards and enthusiastic reviews at the Photographic Society of London’s annual exhibitions. Critics admired the subtlety and elegance of her figure compositions and the freedom of her use of light. Modern artists and critics have responded to her preoccupation with mirrors, windows, doubles and ambiguous subject matter. She gave no clue as to the possible narrative implied by her images. They were exhibited simply as Study from Life or Photographic Study.

Lady Hawarden worked in a studio in the family house in Princes Gardens close to the V&A and, as in this image, her principal models were her daughters. Clementina, in modern 1860s day clothes, is shown on the balcony of the Hawarden house, while her sister, Isabella Grace, poses in a costume. Strong light from the window partially ‘insubstantiates’ the figure, while the mirror suggests an alternative, private, self-contained world.

Collodion-on-glass negatives were introduced in 1851. Collodion is a light-sensitive solution of ether and guncotton (cotton steeped in nitric and sulphuric acids). It was poured onto glass pates and had to be exposed in the camera while still wet. This process yielded a high level of detail in the image.

Virtually the whole of Lady Hawarden’s extensive corpus survives thanks to the donation by her granddaughter, Clementina, Lady Tottenham, of 776 prints to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1939. Judging from the torn corners of many of the prints (some of them subsequently trimmed with scissors), the prints originally belonged in albums: why they were removed remains unknown.