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Isabella Grace and Clementina Maude, 5 Princes Gardens
Clementina, Lady Hawarden, born 1822 - died 1865 - Enlarge image
Isabella Grace and Clementina Maude, 5 Princes Gardens; Photographic Study
- Object:
Photograph
- Place of origin:
South Kensington, England (photographed)
- Date:
ca. 1863-1864 (photographed)
- Artist/Maker:
Clementina, Lady Hawarden, born 1822 - died 1865 (photographer)
- Materials and Techniques:
Photograph
- Credit Line:
Given by Lady Clementina Tottenham
- Museum number:
PH.373-1947
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level H, case X, shelf 33H, box XVIII
Virginia Dodier thinks that this photograph belongs to an ‘Orientalist’ series. Here, Lady Hawarden gives her drawing room a tent-like atmosphere.
Such scenes were popularised by the painter J. F. Lewis, and Roger Fenton exhibited his photographic ‘Nubian Series’ in 1859. Dodier writes that the idea of Orientalism allowed European artists to ‘evoke sensuality on the premise of presenting quasi-ethnographical information about the customs of the East’.
The idea of the fancy dress or allegorical portrait stems from an earlier tradition in English art. They are found, for example, in the work of the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92).
