Please complete the form to email this item.

Photograph - Clementina and Isabella Grace Maude, 5 Princes Gardens; Photographic Study
  • Clementina and Isabella Grace Maude, 5 Princes Gardens
    Clementina, Lady Hawarden, born 1822 - died 1865
  • Enlarge image

Clementina and Isabella Grace 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:

    Albumen print from wet collodion negative

  • Credit Line:

    Given by Lady Clementina Tottenham

  • Museum number:

    PH.356-1947

  • Gallery location:

    Prints & Drawings Study Room, level C, case 2H, shelf 4

  • Download image

Lady Hawarden made many tableaux, using her two eldest daughters as her models. They often play out courtship scenes, dressed in 18th-century costume. Hawarden’s main interest in these scenes was perhaps as a stimulus to her sense of composition. She would arrange the figures into satisfying dramatised poses, together with fixed elements of the studio such as the casements of the windows, the wooden floors and the reflections. Transitory effects such as the play of light and shadow across the figure grouping also have a part to play in the composition.

Physical description

Sepia photograph, mounted on green card, of two young women in 18th century costume.

5 Princes Gardens, interior: first floor, front: left window: screen: floor-boards: Clementina (right profile), in fancy dress (breeches), eyes closed, seated on folded mattress on floor, left hand fingering brim of Isabella Grace's hat and right hand holding tricorn hat on Isabella Grace's lap, and Isabella Grace, in fancy dress (eighteenth-century shepherdess style), eyes closed, seated, arms folded across waist. Reflection of her left side in window. Visible through window: balustrade; houses east side of Princes Gardens.

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

Albumen print from wet collodion negative

Dimensions

Height: 23.8 cm, Width: 27.3 cm

Historical context note

From departmental notes

'Clementina, Lady HawardenUntitled) Photographic Study (or) Study from Life (D.724) c. 1863-c.1864 5 Princes Gardens, interior: first floor, front: left window: screen: floor-boards: Clementina (right profile), in fancy dress (breeches), eyes closed, seated on folded mattress on floor, left hand fingering brim of Isabella Grace's hat and right hand holding tricorn hat on Isabella Grace's lap, and Isabella Grace, in fancy dress (eighteenth-century shepherdess style), eyes closed, seated, arms folded across waist. Reflection of her left side in window. Visible through window: balustrade; houses east side of Princes Gardens. Inscription (verso): No 150; Inscription (verso of mount): (X614-)150 238 x 273 mmPH 356-1947 Series 145 Literature: Microfilm: 3.18.102; V&A Picture Library negative no. HG 210. Windows, Fox Talbot Museum, 1985; Masterpieces, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986. Whether or not the participants were aware of it, some of Lady Hawarden's photographs reverberate with romantic, even sexual, feeling. Such are the models' powers of persuasion that it seems not to matter that this eighteenth-century tableau is set, not on a mossy rock in a wooded glade, but on a rolled-up mattress on a bare wooden floor. The elegant line of Clementina's legs, revealed by her Cherubino-like knee­breeches, thrusts her toward Isabella Grace. Foiled by her crossed arms, the lover does not enfold the beloved. Rather, in a gesture epitomizing the scene's pervasive delicacy, Clementina merely fingers the brim of Isabella Grace's hat. A shadow hangs over the pair, though it serves to draw them closer.'

Descriptive line

Lady Hawarden, 'Clementina and Isabella Grace Maude, 5 Princes Gardens', photograph.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierungen Munich: Pinakothek der Moderne, 2008. ISBN: 978-3-7757-2203-2.
Exhibition catalogue
Literature: Microfilm: 3.18.102; V&A Picture Library negative no. HG 210.

Exhibition History

Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierungen (Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich 18/07/2008-30/09/2008)

Labels and date

Label for 'Making It Up: Photographic Fictions' (3 May 2013 - 12 January 2014):

Clementina, Lady Hawarden (1822–65)
Studies from Life or Photographic Studies
About 1864

Lady Hawarden made many staged tableaux using her two eldest daughters as models. Here they portray scenes of courtship. They enact the intimacy of lovers while also evoking the emotional closeness between mother and daughter, and between sisters. The photographs were torn from albums, and since they have no captions, the narrative is left to the viewer’s imagination.

Albumen prints
Given by Lady Clementina Tottenham
Museum nos. Ph.274-1947, 358-1947, 356-1947, 271-1947

Production Note

Reason For Production: Exhibition
Reason For Production: Retail

Materials

Photograph

Techniques

Albumen process

Subjects depicted

Clothing; South Kensington; Maude, Clementina; Maude, Isabella Grace

Categories

Portraits; Interiors; Photographs

Production Type

Unlimited edition

Collection code

PDP

Download image
Qr_O93508
Ajax-loader