{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1394110"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1394110/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2018KN9819/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2018KN9819/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2018KN9819","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KN9842","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1394110","accessionNumber":"RPS.704-2017","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Dèjatch Alámayou / King Theodore's Son","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"When Julia Margaret Cameron photographed her intellectual heroes such as Alfred Tennyson, John Herschel and Henry Taylor, her aim was to record ‘the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man.’ Another motive was to earn money from prints of the photographs, since her family’s finances were precarious. Within her first year as a photographer she began exhibiting and selling through the London gallery Colnaghi’s. She used autographs to increase the value of some portraits.\r\n\r\nPrince Dèjatch Alamayou was the son of an Ethiopian emperor who died by suicide rather than surrender to the British in 1868. The orphan prince came to live on the Isle of Wight, where Queen Victoria took a particular interest in him, paying for his education and allowing him to be buried at Windsor Castle when he died of pleurisy aged eighteen. \n\nCameron took this photograph of Alámayou during one of his visits to Queen Victoria at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, in 1868. Probably responding to public interest in the orphan African prince, Cameron has presented her subject as a melancholy and romantic figure. The photograph was initially printed in large format but was reproduced in the form of cabinet cards and cartes de visite.","physicalDescription":"Photograph of a seven-year-old boy (Prince Alámayou), seated, wearing a white shirt and necklace with large pear-shaped pendants. A shield has been positioned behind the child who looks off to his left whilst holding up a doll on a toy couch. The same shield appears in a Cameron photograph of Captain Speedy (19-1939).","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"},{"text":"photography","id":"AAT54225"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative","categories":[{"text":"African Diaspora","id":"THES48873"},{"text":"Black History","id":"THES48989"},{"text":"Portraits","id":"THES48906"},{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"The Royal Photographic Society","id":"THES281081"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"},{"text":"Women photographers","id":"THES380381"}],"styles":[{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"DOP","id":"THES291628"},"images":["2018KN9819","2018KN9842"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"MB004","shelf":"BY005","box":"XRP 89 B"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}],[{"text":"albumen print","id":"AAT127121"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Isle of Wight","id":"x28925"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"July 1868","earliest":"1868-07-01","latest":"1868-07-31"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":"month of production assigned by Cox and Ford"}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"PROV.1090-2017","id":"O1380974"},"association":"RPS Group record"}],"creditLine":"The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund.","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":[],"objectHistory":"Frustrated by a lack of communication from Queen Victoria’s government, in 1864 the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II (Theodore) took a number of Europeans captive, including the British consul, Captain Cameron. The British response was a military expedition of huge complexity and expense led by General Sir Robert Napier. The expedition marched to Tewodros’s fortress at Maqdala (Magdala) where a brief battle took place. Britain won the conflict, but not before the captives were released and Tewodros had taken his own life.\n\nThe expedition, which involved more than 13,000 men and a journey of some 400 miles, received unprecedented publicity in Britain. Crucially, it was one of Britain’s earliest military operations to be captured via the relatively new science of photography. \n\nRegarding the logistics of the photographic campaign and the subsequent publishing and circulation of the views, historian James R. Ryan states: \n\n ‘Two bulky sets of photographic stores and equipment (of which only one was used) were sent from England at the suggestion of the director of the Royal Engineers’ Establishment at Chatham. The equipment was supervised in the field by a chief photographer, Sergeant John Harrold, and seven assistants. Besides their other duties, the Royal Engineers used the camera to record scenes of the expeditionary forces, portraits of officers and landscape views (p. 74). As noted by Ryan, this selection rendered \"Abyssinia's indigenous inhabitants virtually invisible ... The Abyssinian Campaign was thus collectively presented as a war waged against nature\"’ (p. 92-93).\n\n‘Although it is not known how many such photographs were made in total, a series of seventy-eight, including landscape views, camp scenes, sketches and portraits were subsequently assembled into albums and presented to various worthy institutions of government and science, from the RGS to the Foreign Office, by the Secretary of State for War in 1869. A number of the photographs were also used, along with drawings by various officers, as a basis for the illustrations in the official Record of the Expedition to Abyssinia.' (p. 74)\n\n'Unlike commercial photographers who accompanied earlier and subsequent campaigns, the photographers of the Royal Engineers were not treated as privileged artists. Nor were they individually acknowledged on their photographs. Their work was represented as a collective record rather than a series of subjective studies.' (p. 81)\n\nChapter 3, ‘The Art of Campaigning’, in Picturing Empire, Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire, James R. Ryan, London: Reaktion Books, 1997.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Dèjatch Alámayou / King Theodore's Son' (sitter Prince Alámayou of Abyssinia), albumen print, 1868","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"Cox, Julian and Colin Ford, with contributions by Joanne Lukitsh and Philippa Wright. <u>Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs</u>. London: Thames &amp; Hudson, in association with The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford, 2003. ISBN: 0-500-54265-1","id":"AUTH321348"},"details":"Cat. no. 1122, p. 456.","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Dejatch Alamayou","id":"N3990"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"portraits","id":"AAT15637"},{"text":"princes","id":"AAT25482"},{"text":"shields","id":"AAT36869"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["RPS.704-2017"],"accessionNumberNum":"704","accessionNumberPrefix":"RPS","accessionYear":2017,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"RPS collection - V&A identifier","id":"THES275176"},"number":"XRP87"},{"type":{"text":"Science Museum Group accession number","id":"THES275235"},"number":"2003-5001/2/25064"},{"type":{"text":"Royal Photographic Society number","id":"THES275233"},"number":"2077"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-03-25","recordCreationDate":"2017-05-26","availableToBook":false}}