Julia Margaret Cameron
The Little Novice and Queen Guinevere In the Holy House of AlmsburyOctober, 1874

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Julia Margaret Cameron
Title: The Little Novice and Queen Guinevere In the Holy House of Almsbury
Place Made: England
Date Made: October, 1874
Medium: Albumen silver print
Dimensions: Image: 13 1/2 × 10 11/16 in. (34.3 × 27.1 cm) Primary support: 13 1/2 × 10 11/16 in. (34.3 × 27.1 cm) Secondary support: 17 × 13 1/16 in. (43.2 × 33.2 cm) Mat: 18 × 22 in. (45.72 × 55.88 cm)
Credit Line: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin
Accession Number: M.2008.40.378
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Julia Margaret Cameron is a central figure in the history of photography. She acquired her first camera at the age of forty-eight. “From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” Cameron’s social circle was artistic, intellectual, and eccentric, and her family and friends populate her photographs, both as portrait subjects and as actors in staged costume dramas. In 1874, Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson invited Cameron to illustrate Idylls of the King (1859–85), his cycle of poems narrating the legend of King Arthur. In this episode, Queen Guinevere, who has taken refuge in a convent, reflects on her grief and guilt, closing her eyes to deflect a young novice’s innocent questions about the outside world. The sitters are identified in copyright documents as Mrs. Hardinge and one of the Keown sisters, both of whom lived in the area and appear in other photographs by Cameron.

Britt Salvesen

2024
Selected Bibliography: Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.

Julia Margaret Cameron
The Little Novice and Queen Guinevere In the Holy House of AlmsburyOctober, 1874

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Julia Margaret Cameron
Title: The Little Novice and Queen Guinevere In the Holy House of Almsbury
Place Made: England
Date Made: October, 1874
Medium: Albumen silver print
Dimensions: Image: 13 1/2 × 10 11/16 in. (34.3 × 27.1 cm) Primary support: 13 1/2 × 10 11/16 in. (34.3 × 27.1 cm) Secondary support: 17 × 13 1/16 in. (43.2 × 33.2 cm) Mat: 18 × 22 in. (45.72 × 55.88 cm)
Credit Line: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin
Accession Number: M.2008.40.378
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Julia Margaret Cameron is a central figure in the history of photography. She acquired her first camera at the age of forty-eight. “From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” Cameron’s social circle was artistic, intellectual, and eccentric, and her family and friends populate her photographs, both as portrait subjects and as actors in staged costume dramas. In 1874, Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson invited Cameron to illustrate Idylls of the King (1859–85), his cycle of poems narrating the legend of King Arthur. In this episode, Queen Guinevere, who has taken refuge in a convent, reflects on her grief and guilt, closing her eyes to deflect a young novice’s innocent questions about the outside world. The sitters are identified in copyright documents as Mrs. Hardinge and one of the Keown sisters, both of whom lived in the area and appear in other photographs by Cameron.

Britt Salvesen

2024
Selected Bibliography: Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.