{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O129672"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O129672/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BU5289/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BU5289/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2008BU5289","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O129672/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O129672","accessionNumber":"44760","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"The five foolish Virgins","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Julia Margaret Cameron looked to painting and sculpture as inspiration for her allegorical and narrative subjects. Some works are photographic interpretations of specific paintings by artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo. Others aspired more generally to create ‘Pictorial Effect’. \r\n\r\nCameron's harshest critics attacked her for using the supposedly truthful medium of photography to depict imaginary subject matter. Some suggested that at best her photographs could serve as studies for painters. The South Kensington Museum, however, purchased only 'Madonnas' and 'Fancy Subjects', and exhibited them as pictures in their own right.\n\r\nThis photograph along with 'The Five Wise Virgins' references the biblical parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in which ten bridesmaids await the bridegroom, who symbolises Christ. The wise bridesmaids (with modestly covered heads and lamps in their hands) keep oil in reserve, but the foolish ones (here with immodestly flowing hair) let their lamps burn out and miss the celebration. One critic at the time accused the models in both pictures of looking ‘equally foolish’. ","physicalDescription":"Full-lenght portrait of five women (from left: unknown woman, Mary Hillier, Mary Ryan, Mary Kellaway, unknown woman) with long hair wearing white clothes.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Cameron, Julia Margaret","id":"A8214"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"AAT25687"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"photographic paper","id":"AAT14190"}],"techniques":[{"text":"albumen process","id":"AAT133274"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative","categories":[{"text":"Religion","id":"THES48900"},{"text":"Christianity","id":"THES48978"},{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"Biblical Imagery","id":"THES253006"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"},{"text":"Woman photographer","id":"THES380381"}],"styles":[{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2008BU5289"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"X","shelf":"311","box":"D"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Isle of Wight","id":"x28925"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1864","earliest":"1864-01-01","latest":"1864-12-31"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"44:779","id":"O1097717"},"association":"Version"}],"creditLine":"Purchased from Julia Margaret Cameron, 17 June 1865","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"25.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"21.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"39","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"mount","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"30","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"mount","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Five Foolish Virgins      Dup. of 44779","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Recto mount in pencil by unknown hand at the bottom"},{"content":"<u>Virgins</u>, the five foolish / (study for)","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Recto mount in pencil bby unknown hand at lower left corner"},{"content":"Studies for Painting","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Recto mount in pencil by unknown hand at upper left corner"},{"content":"X.311 44760   Photographs by Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron, c. 1864-75. “The five foolish Virgins.”","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Museum label pasted to mount"}],"objectHistory":"Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) was one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century. Her photographs were rule-breaking: purposely out of focus, and often including scratches, smudges and other traces of the artist’s process.  Best known for her powerful portraits, she also posed her sitters – friends, family and servants – as characters from biblical, historical or allegorical stories.   \r\n\r\nBorn in Calcutta on 11 June 1815, the fourth of seven sisters, her father was an East India Company official and her mother descended from French aristocracy. Educated mainly in France, Cameron returned to India in 1834. \r\n\r\nIn 1842, the British astronomer Sir John Herschel (1792 – 1871) introduced Cameron to photography, sending her examples of the new invention. They had met in 1836 while Cameron was convalescing from an illness in the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.  He remained a life-long friend and correspondent on technical photographic matters. That same year she met Charles Hay Cameron (1795–1880), 20 years her senior, a reformer of Indian law and education. They married in Calcutta in 1838 and she became a prominent hostess in colonial society. A decade later, the Camerons moved to England. By then they had four children; two more were born in England. Several of Cameron’s sisters were already living there, and had established literary, artistic and social connections. The Camerons eventually settled in Freshwater, on the Isle of Wight.\r\n\r\nAt the age of 48 Cameron received a camera as a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. It was accompanied by the words, ‘It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.’  Cameron had compiled albums and even printed photographs before, but her work as a photographer now began in earnest.  \r\n\r\nThe Camerons lived at Freshwater until 1875, when they moved to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where Charles Cameron had purchased coffee and rubber plantations, managed under difficult agricultural and financial conditions by three of their sons. Cameron continued her photographic practice at her new home yet her output decreased significantly and only a small body of photographs from this time remains. After moving to Ceylon the Camerons made only one more visit to England in May 1878.  Julia Margaret Cameron died after a brief illness in Ceylon in 1879.\r\n\r\nCameron’s relationship with the Victoria and Albert Museum dates to the earliest years of her photographic career.  The first museum exhibition of Cameron's work was held in 1865 at the South Kensington Museum, London (now the V&amp;A). The South Kensington Museum was not only the sole museum to exhibit Cameron’s work in her lifetime, but also the institution that collected her photographs most extensively in her day. In 1868 the Museum gave Cameron the use of two rooms as a portrait studio, perhaps qualifying her as its first artist-in-residence. Today the V&amp;A’s Cameron collection includes photographs acquired directly from the artist, others collected later from various sources, and five letters from Cameron to Sir Henry Cole (1808–82), the Museum’s founding director and an early supporter of photography.\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'The five foolish Virgins' (sitters unknown woman, Mary Hillier, Mary Ryan, Mary Kellaway, unknown woman), albumen print, 1864","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Julian Cox and Colin Ford, et al. <u>Julia Margaret Cameron: the complete photographs.</u> London : Thames and Hudson, 2003. Cat. no. 123"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Weiss, Marta. <u>Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs to electrify you with delight and startle the world</u>. London: MACK, 2015, p. 79."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Hillier, Mary Ann","id":"N2496"},{"text":"Ryan, Mary","id":"N5205"},{"text":"Kellaway, Mary","id":"N5206"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"virgins","id":"AAT188706"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":["(Matthew 25:1-13) A parable regarding readiness for the second coming. The five wise bridesmaids have extra oil for their lamps; the five foolish bridesmaids are unprepared. When the bridegroom arrives for the wedding banquet, the five foolish virgins are absent, having left to buy oil, thus missing the celebration. ","(as per Cox, Julian and Ford, Colin.  'Julia Margaret Cameron:  the Complete Photographs'.  London:  Thames and Hudson, 2003)."],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"<i>Julia Margaret Cameron</i>\nVictoria and Albert Museum\n\n<b>The Five Wise Virgins and The Five Foolish Virgins</b>\n\r\n1864\n\r\nIn the biblical parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, ten bridesmaids await the bridegroom, who symbolises Christ. The wise bridesmaids (here with modestly covered heads and lamps in their hands) keep oil in reserve, but the foolish ones (with immodestly flowing hair) let their lamps burn out and miss the celebration. One critic at the time accused the models in both pictures of looking ‘equally foolish’.\n\r\nPurchased from Julia Margaret Cameron, June 1865\r\nV&amp;A: 44778, 44779","date":{"text":"28 November 2015-21 February 2016","earliest":"2015-11-28","latest":"2016-02-21"}}],"partNumbers":["44760"],"accessionNumberNum":"44760","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-01-12","recordCreationDate":"2006-12-02","availableToBook":false}}