Marie Spartali
Medium
Albumen silver print
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1969
Accession Number
69.607.7
Tags
Art Historical Context
Julia Margaret Cameron's *Marie Spartali* (1868) is a captivating albumen silver print portrait that exemplifies the Victorian photographer's innovative approach to the medium. Captured during Cameron's prolific Isle of Wight period, this photograph portrays the striking Greek-English beauty Marie Spartali Stillman, a prominent Pre-Raphaelite model and painter herself. The albumen process, using egg whites to bind silver salts on paper, produced the era's signature warm tones and fine detail, lending Cameron's works a painterly richness that blurred the lines between photography and fine art. ...
About the Artist
Julia Margaret Cameron · 1815–1879
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879), born Julia Margaret Pattle in Calcutta, India, emerged as one of the 19th century's most innovative photographers despite beginning her career at age 48. The daughter of East India Company official James Pattle and French aristocrat Adeline de l'Etang, she was educated in France from 1818 to 1834 alongside her six surviving sisters, renowned for their beauty and...