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Temperance
Julia Margaret Cameron, born 1815 - died 1879 - Enlarge image
Temperance; Fruits of the Spirit
- Object:
Photograph
- Place of origin:
Isle of Wight, England (photographed)
- Date:
1864 (photographed)
- Artist/Maker:
Julia Margaret Cameron, born 1815 - died 1879 (photographer)
- Materials and Techniques:
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
- Credit Line:
Transferred from the British Museum
- Museum number:
E.1226-2000
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level H, case X, shelf 311, box R
This photograph is one of a series of nine made in 1864 (Julia Margaret Cameron's first year of photography), known as "The Fruits of the Spirit". Cameron conceptualised the photographs in the sequence individually, inscribing the title on the mount of each print, corresponding to the virtues of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance as taught by Paul in the Galatians (5:22-3). The photographs show a model (Mary Hillier) as a contemplative Madonna and in all but one (Joy, V&A Ph 363-1981) posed in the manner of the Madonna and Child (with one or two infants), an often depicted and important subject in the history of art, particularly in Flemish and Italian Renaissance painting. Cameron's house maid Hillier appeared so frequently and convincingly in the guise of Madonna that she was known in the Freshwater circles as "Mary Madonna".
