Lady Elcho / A Dantesque Vision

From the Getty Museum record

> According to Hester Thackeray Fuller (daughter of Anne Thackeray Ritchie), Julia Margaret Cameron is said to have remarked that “no woman should ever allow herself to be photographed between the ages of 18 and 90.” Cameron seldom permitted others to take her picture once she had reached maturity, and she infrequently photographed older women, thereby tacitly conforming to the notion that feminine representations should subscribe to the conventional requirements of youth and beauty. Conspicuously absent in her body of work are portraits of the talented, mature women who were a powerful presence in the elite society in which she moved. > > There are exceptions to this rather narrow rule in instances where Cameron deemed either a subject or a narrative worthy of her camera. Her somewhat unusual full-figure portrait of Lady Elcho (née Anne Frederica Anson, 1823-1896) standing under an oak tree in the garden of Little Holland House is inspired by Pre-Raphaelite painting and represents, as the subtitle indicates, “A Dantesque Vision.” The subject is attired in a grand brocaded cloak, one that Cameron used with later models. Deciding to photograph outdoors presented the difficulty of working with unmediated natural light, a circumstance with which the artist was unfamiliar. The problem of focus is also evident—the tree is the sole compositional element that is sharply drawn, while the figure and background float in undetermined pictorial space. > > At the same sitting Cameron made a seated study entitled *Lady Elcho as a Cumean Sibyl*. Both pictures were on view in Cameron’s first exhibition at Colnaghi’s in July 1865 and were registered for copyright the same month. Prints of each were also included in the Getty’s Overstone Album (see [84.XZ.186.89](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/58667/julia-margaret-cameron-lady-elcho-as-a-cumean-sybil-british-1865/)). > > Julian Cox. *Julia Margaret Cameron*, In Focus: From the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), 46. ©1996 The J. Paul Getty Museum.