Lady Hawarden, 'Untitled, Study from Life', photograph.

5 Princes Gardens, interior: first floor, front: right window: screen: floor-boards: Clementina, in fancy dress (Orientalist style), eyes closed, reclining on draped divan, left hand grasping epergne, right hand on cheek. Beside divan are cheval-glass (which reflects left side of her torso, window, and window-casement) and French-style side-table (on which are jug, plate, and easel-back mirror). Visible through window: balcony; houses south side of Princes Gardens (faintly) .

Given by Lady Clementina Tottenham

Lady Clementina Hawarden took up photography about 1857 and became one of the most experimental and original photographers of the nineteenth century. She often used her children, husband and servants as models. The full-length looking-glass mirror which often appears in her pictures was known as a ‘psyche’ and is a visual pun on the Greek god ‘Psyche’, who represented the spiritual aspect of mankind. So the mirror and figures together in her pictures seem to represent the spiritual and material aspects of human life.

From departmental notes

'Clementina, Lady Hawarden (Untitled) Photographic Study (or) Study from Life (D.665) c.1863-c.1864 5 Princes Gardens, interior: first floor, front: right window: screen: floor-boards: Clementina, in fancy dress (Orientalist style), eyes closed, reclining on draped divan, left hand grasping epergne, right hand on cheek. Beside divan are cheval-glass (which reflects left side of her torso, window, and window-casement) and French-style side-table (on which are jug, plate, and easel-back mirror). Visible through window: balcony; houses south side of Princes Gardens (faintly) . Inscription (verso): No 123; Inscription (verso of mount): (X614-)123 244 x 283 mm PH 309-1947 Series 129 Literature: Microfilm: 3.18.144 Frauen in der Kunst (travelling exhibition), Ne I Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst, Berlin, 1977; Private View: The Erotic Image in Photography, Royal Photographic Society, 1987-88. Like an odalisque in a harem, Clementina reclines on a divan draped with rich fabrics. Her body is nearly insubstantiated by light, and she seems to be rising, perhaps to the plane of dreams, as the outside world recedes. The cheval-glass--also called a 'psyche'--isolates her cheek resting on her hand in the Classic gesture of contemplation. She grasps an epergne--a fruit basket, symbol of sensuality--close to her breast. Perched on the table's edge, beside another, blank mirror, is a jug whose shape echoes the contours of the female body and whose situation recalls the traditional predicament of feminine virtue.'

309-1947