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Daughters of Jerusalem and Child thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
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Daughters of Jerusalem and Child

Photograph
1865 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Julia Margaret Cameron accepted and even embraced irregularities that other photographers would have rejected as technical flaws. In addition to her pioneering use of soft focus, she scratched into her negatives, printed from broken or damaged ones and occasionally used multiple negatives to form a single picture. Although criticised at the time as evidence of ‘slovenly’ technique, these traces of the artist’s hand in Cameron’s prints can now be appreciated for their modernity.

Cameron was not uncritical of her work and strove to improve her skills. She sought the opinion of her mentor, the artist G. F. Watts, though at his insistence she sent him imperfect prints for comment, reserving the more successful ones for potential sale. Cameron also sought advice from the Photographic Society and from Henry Cole, founding director of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), on combatting the ‘cruel calamity’ of crackling that had ruined some of her ‘most precious negatives’.

This is a type of combination print, assembled from two negatives. It may refer to a passage in the Bible in which Jesus says, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.’



Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleDaughters of Jerusalem and Child (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Brief description
Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Daughters of Jerusalem and Child' (sitters Mary Kellaway, unknown woman, Mary Hillier, Percy Keown), albumen print, 1865
Physical description
Half-length portrait of three women (Mary Kellaway, Mary Hillier and an unknown woman), looking in different directions, standing next to each other behind a sleeping baby (Percy Keown) with a garland of flowers.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 34.5cm
  • Image width: 26.2cm
  • Mount height: 35.7cm
  • Mount width: 26.6cm
Style
Gallery label
Julia Margaret Cameron: A Bicentenary Exhibition Daughters of Jerusalem and Child 1865 This is another of Cameron’s rather crude combination prints, assembled from two negatives. It may refer to a passage in the Bible in which Jesus says, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.’ Given by Mrs Margaret Southam, 1941 Museum no. PH.336-1981 (18 November 2014 – 25 September 2016)
Credit line
Given by Mrs Margaret Southam, 1941
Object history
Julia Margaret Cameron's career as a photographer began in 1863 when her daughter gave her a camera. Cameron began photographing everyone in sight. Because of the newness of photography as a practice, she was free to make her own rules and not be bound to convention. The kinds of images being made at the time did not interest Cameron. She was interested in capturing another kind of photographic truth. Not one dependent on accuracy of sharp detail, but one that depicted the emotional state of her sitter.

Cameron liked the soft focus portraits and the streak marks on her negatives, choosing to work with these irregularities, making them part of her pictures. Although at the time Cameron was seen as an unconventional and experimental photographer, her images have a solid place in the history of photography.

Most of Cameron's photographs are portraits. She used members of her family as sitters and made photographs than concentrated on their faces. She was interested in conveying their natural beauty, often asking female sitters to let down their hair so as to show them in a way that they were not accustomed to presenting themselves. In addition to making stunning and evocative portraits both of male and female subjects, Cameron also staged tableaux and posed her sitters in situations that simulated allegorical paintings.

The title is a reference to the biblical 'Song of Solomon'.
Production
Image is made from two negatives
Subjects depicted
Literary referenceSong of Solomon
Summary
Julia Margaret Cameron accepted and even embraced irregularities that other photographers would have rejected as technical flaws. In addition to her pioneering use of soft focus, she scratched into her negatives, printed from broken or damaged ones and occasionally used multiple negatives to form a single picture. Although criticised at the time as evidence of ‘slovenly’ technique, these traces of the artist’s hand in Cameron’s prints can now be appreciated for their modernity.

Cameron was not uncritical of her work and strove to improve her skills. She sought the opinion of her mentor, the artist G. F. Watts, though at his insistence she sent him imperfect prints for comment, reserving the more successful ones for potential sale. Cameron also sought advice from the Photographic Society and from Henry Cole, founding director of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), on combatting the ‘cruel calamity’ of crackling that had ruined some of her ‘most precious negatives’.

This is a type of combination print, assembled from two negatives. It may refer to a passage in the Bible in which Jesus says, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.’

Bibliographic references
  • Julian Cox and Colin Ford, et al. Julia Margaret Cameron: the complete photographs. London : Thames and Hudson, 2003. Cat. no. 143, p. 166
  • Taken from Photography Department index card catalogue
Collection
Accession number
PH.336-1981

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Record createdJune 4, 2004
Record URL
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