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John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)

Photograph
ca. late 1850s (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Britain (made)

Cased photograph; hand-tinted collodion positive; bust portrait of a young man looking slightly to his left.

Object details

Categories
Photographs
Portraits
Gender and Sexuality
LGBTQ
Object type
Photograph
TitleJohn Addington Symonds (1840-1893) (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Collodion positive
Pen and Ink
Paper
Collodion
Tinting
Brief description
Hand-tinted collodion positive portrait of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), Victorian poet and early advocate and writer on the topic of homosexuality. Great Britain, ca. late 1850s.
Physical description
Cased photograph; hand-tinted collodion positive; bust portrait of a young man looking slightly to his left.
Dimensions
  • Case height: 9.4cm
  • Case width: 8.2cm
  • Frame height: 8.3cm
  • Frame width: 7cm
  • Image height: 7.4cm
  • Image width: 5.5cm
  • Case open width: 16.5cm
Production typeUnique
Object history
The accessions register records that this photograph was taken while Symonds was still at Harrow School but the provenance of this information is not recorded there.
Subjects depicted
Portrait
Homosexuality
Symonds
Bibliographic references
  • The following excerpts are from 'The Life and Writings of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)' by Rictor Norton: 'John Addington Symonds was in the forefront of the "bourgeois radical" men and women with socialist ideals who were destined to reform public opinion in the 1890s. His specific contribution to the regeneration of society was as a pioneer in the field of gay rights; he was the first modern historian of (male) homosexuality, and the first advocate of gay liberation in Britain. In the 1960s the triumvirate of Walt Whitman, John Addington Symonds, and Edward Carpenter was a major inspiration to the intelligentsia of the Gay Liberation Movement in America and Britain, Whitman providing the fervour of comradeship, Carpenter providing the political idealism, and Symonds providing an awareness of gay history and the realization that gay culture was part of the mainstream of life.'
  • The following excerpt is from 'Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History', by Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon (Routledge 2001): "Symonds' long struggle to come to terms with his sexuality took place at first mainly through poetry and art. Here his feelings with men could be explored with some degree of safety. Apart from his dogged literary endeavours, which never received the recognition acheived by acquaintances like Swinburne and Walter Pater, Symonds was able to make an important contributuion to the understanding of homosexuality, a term whose use in English he also pioneered. Written in 1873, his essay 'A Problem in Greek Ethics' addressed one of the central paradoxes of 19th century British culture, which revered Greek art, philosophy and literature whilst deploring its sexual mores."
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
PH.222-1983

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Record createdMay 26, 2004
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O98756/john-addington-symonds-1840-1893-photograph-unknown/
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