{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O191696"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O191696/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BU5296/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BU5296/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2008BU5296","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AN1841","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O191696/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O191696","accessionNumber":"E.2754-1990","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Henry John Stedman Cotton","type":"popular title"}],"summaryDescription":"When Julia Margaret Cameron photographed her intellectual heroes such as Alfred Tennyson, Sir 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.\n\nCotton had a long career in the Indian civil service. In 1867, before leaving for India, he married Cameron's maid Mary Ryan, whose beauty he first noticed when she was working as an attendant at one of Cameron's exhibitions. Cameron was proud of the unconventional union and photographed the couple in several romantic roles. \r\n","physicalDescription":"A photograph of a man with mustache in side profile.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Julia Margaret Cameron","id":"A8214"},"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"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"},{"text":"Woman photographer","id":"THES380381"}],"styles":[{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2008BU5296","2006AN1841"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"X","shelf":"311","box":"Q"}],"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":"May 1867","earliest":"1867-05-01","latest":"1867-05-31"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Nevinson Bequest, 1990","dimensions":[{"dimension":"height","value":"28.6","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"width","value":"23.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","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.\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Henry John Stedman Cotton', albumen print, 1867","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. 636, p. 314","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Sir Henry John Stedman Cotton","id":"AUTH321899"}],"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<i><b>Henry John Stedman Cotton </b></i>\r\n1867\r\n\r\nCotton had a long career in the Indian civil service. In 1867, before leaving for India, he married Cameron's maid Mary Ryan, whose beauty he first noticed when she was working as an attendant at one of Cameron's exhibitions. Cameron was proud of the unconventional union and photographed the couple in several romantic roles. \r\n\r\nNevinson Bequest, 1990\r\nMuseum no. E.2754-1990\r\n","date":{"text":"18 November 2014 - 25 September 2016","earliest":"2014-11-18","latest":"2016-09-25"}}],"partNumbers":["E.2754-1990"],"accessionNumberNum":"2754","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1990,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-07","recordCreationDate":"2009-02-23","availableToBook":false}}