In her pioneering photography Julia Margaret Cameron pursued the Aesthetic ideal of ‘art for art’s sake’, in which beauty is the only real purpose of art. Here she shows her niece, Emily Mary (May) Prinsep, as Beatrice Cenci, who was hanged in Rome in 1599 for killing her cruel father. Beatrice became a romantic heroine when her story was taken up by English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) in his play The Cenci (1819). By concentrating on the model’s head and melancholy expression, Cameron suggests that the subject’s beauty is intensified by her sad plight.
Physical description
Another print of this was inscribed by Mrs Cameron: 'Study of the Beatrice Cenci from May Prinsep' (the photographer's niece). The true story of the Cenci, which took place in sixteenth-century Italy, inspired Shelley's poetic drama, The Cenci, published in 1819. The debauched Count Cenci conceived an incestuous passion for his daughter Beatrice. The young woman devised, with her step-mother and brother, a desperate plan - hiring assassins to murder her the count. Despite the justice of their cause, Beatrice and her helpers are arrested, admit their guilt, and are sentenced to death by the Pope. The simple title invites this dramatic reading of the life-size, close-up head.
Place of Origin
Isle of Wight, England (photographed)
Date
1866 (photographed)
Artist/maker
Julia Margaret Cameron, born 1815 - died 1879 (photographer)
Materials and Techniques
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Dimensions
height: 35.8 cm image, width: 28.8 cm image
Object history note
Gift of Alan S. Cole, Esq., 19 April 1913
Descriptive line
Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Beatrice' (sitter May Prinsep), albumen print, 1866
Exhibition History
British Galleries (Victoria and Albert Museum 01/01/2004-31/12/2006)
Labels and date
Object Type
This photograph was produced by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) as a work of fine art to be shown in the context of a museum or gallery. It was not intended for mass reproduction, or as a portrait of the sitter, but as an artistic expression in its own right.
People
Although posed as a tragic heroine from sixteenth-century Rome, the model Mary Emily (May) Prinsep (1853-1931) was the adopted daughter of Julia Margaret Cameron's brother-in-law. As well as posing for several of Cameron's photographs (Cameron considered her particularly well-suited to Italian subjects), May Prinsep also sat for the painter and sculptor George Frederick Watts. (1817-1904).
Subjects Depicted
The 'Beatrice' represented is not the heroine of Dante's writings painted by Cameron's contemporaries, including Dante Gabrielle Rosetti (1828-1882), but Beatrice Cenci, a sixteen year old who in 1599 was hanged for her role in the murder of her father, who had raped and abused her. This subject was popularised during the nineteenth-century by a poetic drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley called 'The Cenci', amongst other literary works. Here Cameron has transposed the composition from a painting of 'La Cenci' previously attributed to Guido Reni. She would have known this painting from reproductions of Italian art circulated by The Arundel Society, of which she was a member.
Like the painter, Cameron treats the subject sympathetically, and poses her model with titled head and sad, resigned expression. However, the closer focus on the head heightens the moral drama of a subject that would have appeared both noble and dangerous to contemporary audiences.
In her pioneering photography Julia Margaret Cameron pursued the Aesthetic ideal of 'art for art's sake', in which beauty is the only real purpose of art. Here she shows her niece, May Prinsep, as Beatrice Cenci, who was hanged in Rome in 1599 for killing her cruel father. Beatrice became a romantic heroine when her story was taken up by Percy Bysshe Shelley in his play 'The Cenci' (1819). By concentrating on the model's head and melancholy expression, Cameron suggests that the subject's beauty is intensified by her sad plight.
Production Note
Another print of this was inscribed by Mrs Cameron: 'Study of the Beatrice Cenci from May Prinsep' (the photographer's niece).
Materials
Photographic paper
Techniques
Albumen process
Subjects depicted
Beauty; Tragedy; Prinsep, May; Cenci, Beatrice
Categories
Portraits; Photographs
Collection code
PDP
