Sir John Herschel
Medium
Carbon Print
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1943
Accession Number
43.92
Tags
Art Historical Context
Julia Margaret Cameron's *Sir John Herschel* (1867) is a striking carbon print portrait that captures the renowned British astronomer and polymath Sir John Herschel profound intensity. Cameron, a pioneering Victorian photographer took up the medium at age 48 was celebrated for her soft-focus, allegorical style influenced by Pre-Raphaelite ideals. This image, one of several she made of her close friend Herschel—who coined the term "photographyportrays him as a wise, almost prophetic figure, his piercing gaze and wild hair evoking timeless genius. The carbon print medium was revolutionary for i...
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...