Lot 293
Cameron, Julia Margaret
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 19 June 2018 at 12:00 BST
Description
Little Margie [Thackeray] 'Christ Kind', c.1865, albumen print, 34 x 26cm, laid onto original mount and signed by Cameron, framed and glazed
Footnote
Note: "When Julia Margaret Cameron took up photography in 1864, she passionately embraced allegory as her preferred artistic impulse and arranged her sitters in poses taken from classical literature, the Bible, contemporary poetry, and recent history. She called these photographs her 'fancy subjects'…" [Rosen, Jeff, Julia Margaret Cameron's 'Fancy Subjects', 2016, p.1]
Julia Margaret Cameron's photograph of Little Margie, commonly known as 'Christ Kind', or Christ Child, is an example of Cameron's attraction to allegory in her work. Here, Cameron has recreated the Germanic Christkind - the infant Jesus who delivers presents to children on Christmas Eve. Margie Thackeray, the adopted granddaughter of William Makepeace Thackeray (and his great-niece), is pictured with her hair brushed out, almost to create a halo around her head, giving her an angelic appearance. Cameron's use of strong light catches the crown of the child's head, which is contrasted with the dark behind, again to create the perception of holiness.
Julia Margaret Cameron certainly regarded her photography as an artform, writing to Sir John Herschel (father of the sitter in lot 295): "My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art…" [Rosen, p.2, quoting from Ford "The Cameron Collection]. To this end, Cameron manipulated her photographs to some extent. Cox and Ford write: "If parts of an image were unsatisfactory to her, she engraved lines onto the negative, scratched and painted the collodion, and doctored the image as necessary to suit her expressive needs." [Cox, Julian & Colin Ford. Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs, 2003, p.50]. Similarly, Cameron chose to create a slight blur in many of her photographs, by not tightening her lens to the same extent as many photographers of the day, and eschewing devices such as head restraints for her sitters [Cox & Ford, p.50] This effect can again be observed in the diffusion of Margie Thackeray's hair.