{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O81166"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O81166/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GD5352/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GD5352/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2013GD5352","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O81166/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O81166","accessionNumber":"PH.252-1982","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Zoe /  Maid of Athens","type":"assigned by artist"}],"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. Cameron also continued to make narrative and allegorical tableaux, which were larger and bolder than her previous efforts. \n\r\nThe title here refers to Lord Byron’s poem Maid of Athens, ere we part (1810). The soft, moody lighting conjures the poem’s theme of romantic longing. The embroidered cap is probably meant to suggest Greek folk costume. The last line of each stanza of the poem is ‘Zoë mou sas agapo’, which Byron translated as ‘My life, I love you’. \n\nCameron's friend and mentor, the painter G.F. Watts, wrote to Cameron, ‘Please do not send me valuable mounted copies … send me any … defective unmounted impressions, I shall be able to judge just as well & shall be just as much charmed with success & shall not feel that I am taking money from you.’ This photograph is one of approximately 67 in the V&amp;A's collection that was recently discovered to have belonged to him. Many are unique, which suggests that Cameron was not fully satisfied with them. Some may seem ‘defective’ but others are enhanced by their flaws. All of them contribute to our understanding of Cameron’s working process and the photographs that did meet her standards. \n\r\n","physicalDescription":"A photograph of a woman's head (May Prinsep) with flat embroidered cap.","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":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"},{"text":"Woman photographer","id":"THES380381"}],"styles":[{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2013GD5352"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"X","shelf":"311","box":"L"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1866","earliest":"1866-01-01","latest":"1866-12-31"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":"date assigned by Cox and Ford"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Mrs Margaret Southam, 1941","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"32.0","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"27.2","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","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Zoe / Maid of Athens' (sitter May Prinsep), albumen print, 1866","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. 392, p. 240","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Taken from Photography Department index card catalogue"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[{"text":"Greek War of Independence","id":"V630"}],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"woman","id":"x35642"},{"text":"heroines","id":"AAT236808"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"<i>Julia Margaret Cameron:  A Bicentenary Exhibition</i>\n\n<i><b>Zoe, maid of Athens</b></i>\r\n1866\r\n\r\nThe title here refers to Lord Byron’s poem <i>Maid of Athens</i>, ere we part (1810). The soft, moody lighting conjures the poem’s theme of romantic longing. The embroidered cap is probably meant to suggest Greek folk costume. The last line of each stanza of the poem is ‘Zoë mou sas agapo’, which Byron translated as ‘My life, I love you’. \r\n\r\nGiven by Mrs Margaret Southam, 1941\r\nMuseum no. PH.252-1982\r\n","date":{"text":"18 November 2014 – 25 September 2016","earliest":"2014-11-18","latest":"2016-09-25"}}],"partNumbers":["PH.252-1982"],"accessionNumberNum":"252","accessionNumberPrefix":"PH","accessionYear":1982,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-08-01","recordCreationDate":"2003-06-02","availableToBook":false}}