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Love

Photograph
1864 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Like many of her contemporaries, Julia Margaret Cameron was a devout Christian. As a mother of six, the motif of the Madonna and child held particular significance for her. In aspiring to make ‘High Art’, Cameron aimed to make photographs that could be uplifting and morally instructive.

Within months of acquiring her camera, Cameron embarked on an ambitious series illustrating the nine Christian virtues. Many of the compositions resemble Renaissance paintings. Cameron struggled to represent abstract concepts such as goodness and temperance, as well as to distinguish each virtue from the others. She would not attempt another series until 1874, when she undertook the illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Cameron donated a set of all nine Fruits of the Spirit – mounted in a single frame – to the British Museum in January 1865.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • Love (assigned by artist)
  • Fruits of the Spirit (series title)
Materials and techniques
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Brief description
Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Love' (sitters Elizabeth Keown, Mary Hillier, Alice Keown), from the series Fruits of the Spirit, albumen print, 1864
Physical description
Photograph of a woman (Mary Hillier), looking to her left, with two small semi-nude children (Elizabeth and Alice Keown) on either side of her.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 26.3cm
  • Image width: 20.7cm
  • Mount height: 27.8cm
  • Mount width: 22cm
Style
Marks and inscriptions
  • '[crown stamp] BM - P&D 1865-1-14-1297' (verso, lower left, bottom edge on mount; stamped; brown ink)
  • 'Love.' (lower centre on mount; pasted label; red ink)
  • '1865.1.14.1297.' (on mount, lower centre, under image; inscribed; black ink)
Gallery label
(18 November 2014 – 25 September 2016)
Julia Margaret Cameron: A Bicentenary Exhibition

Fruits of the Spirit
1864

Within months of acquiring her camera, Cameron embarked on an ambitious series illustrating the nine Christian virtues. Many of the compositions resemble Renaissance paintings. Cameron struggled to represent abstract concepts such as goodness and temperance, as well as to distinguish each virtue from the others. She would not attempt another series until 1874, when she undertook the illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Cameron donated a set of all nine Fruits of the Spirit – mounted in a single frame – to the British Museum in January 1865.

Purchased from Julia Margaret Cameron, 17 June 1865
Museum nos. 44:746, 44:756

Given by Mrs Margaret Southam, 1941
Museum no. PH.363-1981

Transferred from the British Museum, 2000
Museum nos. E.1218-2000, E.1220 to 1222-2000, E.1224-2000 and E.1226-2000
Credit line
Transferred from the British Museum, 2000
Object history
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".
Subjects depicted
Literary references
  • Galatians 5:22-23
Summary
Like many of her contemporaries, Julia Margaret Cameron was a devout Christian. As a mother of six, the motif of the Madonna and child held particular significance for her. In aspiring to make ‘High Art’, Cameron aimed to make photographs that could be uplifting and morally instructive.

Within months of acquiring her camera, Cameron embarked on an ambitious series illustrating the nine Christian virtues. Many of the compositions resemble Renaissance paintings. Cameron struggled to represent abstract concepts such as goodness and temperance, as well as to distinguish each virtue from the others. She would not attempt another series until 1874, when she undertook the illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Cameron donated a set of all nine Fruits of the Spirit – mounted in a single frame – to the British Museum in January 1865.
Bibliographic reference
Julian Cox and Colin Ford, et al. Julia Margaret Cameron: the complete photographs. London : Thames and Hudson, 2003. Cat. no. 35.
Collection
Accession number
E.1221-2000

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Record createdJune 2, 2004
Record URL
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