{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O81076"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O81076/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2023NN7946/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2023NN7946/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2023NN7946","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2008BU5361","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AN1811","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O81076/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O81076","accessionNumber":"45148","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Paul and Virginia","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"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.\r\n\r\nCameron was not uncritical of her work and strove to improve her skills. She sought the opinion of her mentor, the painter 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, the 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’.\r\n\r\nThis was one of several variations Cameron made illustrating a scene from Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre’s tragic romance<i> Paul et Virginie</i> (1787). The novel tells of the ill-fated love of two children (here played by Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown) living on Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa. The image depicts the passage in which the two are caught in a storm. \r\n\r\nCameron was most satisfied with this version, and made multiple prints of it. Yet she still found fault with Paul’s feet, and scratched into the negative to make them appear slimmer. The writer Anne Thackeray Ritchie called <i>Paul and Virginia</i> ‘an exquisite little pair’. ","physicalDescription":"A photograph of two children (Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown) draped in sheets or cloth and holding a parasol.","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":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"Children & Childhood","id":"THES48980"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"},{"text":"Woman photographer","id":"THES380381"}],"styles":[{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2023NN7946","2008BU5361","2006AN1811"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"X","shelf":"311","box":"U"}],"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":"date assigned by Cox and Ford"}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"44:952","id":"O1097724"},"association":"copy"}],"creditLine":"Given by or Purchased from Julia Margaret Cameron, 27 September 1865","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"26.6","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"21.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"33.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"26.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"mount","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'Paul and Virginia'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"Cameron, Julia Margaret","id":"A8214"},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"brown ink","method":"inscribed","position":"lower centre, on mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"lower centre, on mount; inscribed; brown ink; Cameron, Julia Margaret"},{"content":"'Julia Margaret Cameron'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"Cameron, Julia Margaret","id":"A8214"},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"brown ink","method":"inscribed","position":"lower right, on mount, under image","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"Signature","note":"Signature; lower right, on mount, under image; inscribed; brown ink; Cameron, Julia Margaret"},{"content":"'From life'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"Cameron, Julia Margaret","id":"A8214"},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"brown ink","method":"inscribed","position":"lower left, on mount, under image","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"lower left, on mount, under image; inscribed; brown ink; Cameron, Julia Margaret"},{"content":"'Children (boy & girl), study of.'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"black ink","method":"inscribed","position":"lower left, on mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"lower left, on mount; inscribed; black ink"},{"content":"'studies for painting.'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"black ink","method":"inscribed","position":"upper left on mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"upper left on mount; inscribed; black ink"},{"content":"'REGISTERED PHOTOGRAPH sold by MESSERS COLNAGHI'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"P&D Colnaghi and Company","id":"A9696"},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"blind-stamped","method":"","position":"bottom centre, on mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"bottom centre, on mount; blind-stamped; P&D Colnaghi and Company"},{"content":"'Dup. of 44952.'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"pencil","method":"inscribed","position":"lower right on mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"lower right on mount; inscribed; pencil"},{"content":"'258'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"pencil","method":"inscribed","position":"bottom right corner","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"bottom right corner; inscribed; pencil"},{"content":"'45.148'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"brown ink","method":"inscribed","position":"lower right, on mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"lower right, on mount; inscribed; brown ink"},{"content":"'x.311 Photographs by Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron, c.1864 - 75./ Paul and Virginia./ 45148'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"pasting","position":"centre to right, along top of mount","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"Museum labels","note":"Museum labels; centre to right, along top of mount; pasting"}],"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, 'Paul and Virginia' (sitters Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown), albumen print, 1864","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. 23, p. 122","free":""},{"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. 131."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"parasols","id":"AAT46218"}],"contentConcepts":[{"text":"grief","id":"AAT55162"},{"text":"romantic love","id":"x37606"}],"contentLiteraryRefs":[" 'Paul et Virginie' (1787), by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre"],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Making It Up: Photographic Fictions (2018)\r\n\r\nCameron made several variations on this scene from Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s tragic romance Paul et Virginie (1787). The novel tells of the ill-fated love of two children (here played by Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown) living on Mauritius. The image depicts the passage in which the two are caught in a storm. Cameron was most satisfied with this version and made multiple prints of it. Yet she still found fault with Paul’s feet, and scratched into the negative to make them appear slimmer.\r\n\r\nMarta Weiss","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}},{"text":"Gallery 100, ‘History of photography’, 2011-2012, label text : \r\n\r\nJulia Margaret Cameron (1815-79)\r\n‘Paul and Virginia’\r\n1864\r\n\r\nHere Cameron evokes Jacques Henri Bernardin de\r\nSaint Pierre’s tragic romance Paul et Virginie (1787).\r\nThe novel tells of the ill-fated love of two children\r\n(here played by Freddy Gould and Elizabeth Keown)\r\nliving on Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa.\r\nThe image depicts the passage in which the two are\r\ncaught in a storm.\r\nAlbumen print\r\nMuseum no. 45.148\r\n","date":{"text":"07 03 2014","earliest":"2014-03-07","latest":"2014-03-07"}},{"text":"<i>Julia Margaret Cameron</i>\nVictoria and Albert Museum\n\n<b>Paul and Virginia\n</b>\r\n1864 \r\n\r\nCameron was most satisfied with this version, and made multiple prints of it. Yet she still found fault with Paul’s feet, and scratched into the negative to make them appear slimmer. The writer Anne Thackeray Ritchie called <i>Paul and Virginia</i> ‘an exquisite little pair’. \r\n\r\nGiven by or purchased from Julia Margaret Cameron, September 1865\r\nV&amp;A: 45148\r\n","date":{"text":"28 November 2015 – 21 February 2016","earliest":"2015-11-28","latest":"2016-02-21"}}],"partNumbers":["45148"],"accessionNumberNum":"45148","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-08-01","recordCreationDate":"2003-05-27","availableToBook":false}}