{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O191685"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O191685/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011EX3764/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011EX3764/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2011EX3764","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2008BU5377","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O191685/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O191685","accessionNumber":"E.2743-1990","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Unknown Girl","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"In late 1865 Julia Margaret Cameron began using a larger camera, which held a 15 x 12-inch glass negative. Early the next year she wrote to Henry Cole with great enthusiasm – but little modesty – about the new turn she had taken in her work. \r\n\r\nCameron initiated a series of large-scale, close-up heads. These fulfilled her photographic vision, a rejection of ‘mere conventional topographic photography – map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form’ in favour of a less precise but more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture. \r\n\r\nCameron’s good friend Anne Thackeray Ritchie recalled in 1893, ‘Sitting to her was a serious affair, and not to be lightly entered upon. We came at her summons, we trembled (or we should have trembled had we dared to do so) when the round black eye of the camera was turned upon us, we felt the consequences, what a disastrous waste of time and money and effort, might ensue from any passing quiver of emotion.’\r\n","physicalDescription":"A photograph of a young girl, from the shoulders up, with her head tilted towards her left shoulder, ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Julia Margaret Cameron","id":"C5001"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"x43821"},"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":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"Portraits","id":"THES48906"}],"styles":[{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2011EX3764","2008BU5377"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"X","box":"311N"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1865-66","earliest":"1865-01-01","latest":"1866-12-31"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":"date assigned by Cox and Ford"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Nevinson Bequest, 1990","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"30.9","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"25.4","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"30.9 x 25.4 cm","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"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.\r\n\r\nCameron 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.\r\n\r\nMost 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.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Unknown Girl', albumen print, 1865-66","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. 1053, p. 429","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"portraits","id":"AAT15637"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"<i>Julia Margaret Cameron:  A Bicentenary Exhibition</i>\n\n<b>Unknown girl</b>\r\n1865–6\r\n\r\nCameron’s good friend Anne Thackeray Ritchie recalled in 1893, ‘Sitting to her was a serious affair, and not to be lightly entered upon. We came at her summons, we trembled (or we should have trembled had we dared to do so) when the round black eye of the camera was turned upon us, we felt the consequences, what a disastrous waste of time and money and effort, might ensue from any passing quiver of emotion.’\r\n\r\nNevinson Bequest, 1990\r\n","date":{"text":"18 November 2014 – 25 September 2016","earliest":"2014-11-18","latest":"2016-09-25"}}],"partNumbers":["E.2743-1990"],"accessionNumberNum":"2743","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1990,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-07","recordCreationDate":"2009-02-23","availableToBook":false}}