Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00013010Julia Jackson Duckworth (1846-1895)
About the Artwork
Julia Jackson, the artist’s niece, namesake, goddaughter, and favorite model, is shown at age 21, a few weeks before her wedding. Cameron’s usual soft focus here imparts a sense of becoming, appropriate to this important transformation in a Victorian woman’s life. The daringly modern frontal close-up suggests reflection and self-questioning more characteristic of peering into a mirror than posing before a camera. These two images are from a series of four works based on the same negative, each posited by scholars to be a reversal of the preceding image. Reversing the images alters the face, suggesting that Cameron valued recording Jackson’s inner life more than capturing her likeness. Cameron advanced the photographic portrait from commerce to art and from physiognomic depiction to evocation of a sitter’s soul.
Inscriptions
Written in pencil on verso: "Mrs. Duckworth 1867"; " 'Mrs. Duckworth' / Julia Margaret Cameron / Albumen print, / 1867."
Exhibition history
Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 22, 2016-February 5, 2017).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815–1879)
- Date
- 1867
- Medium
- albumen print from wet collodion negative
- Dimensions
- Image: 28.4 x 22.4 cm (11 3/16 x 8 13/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Mann
- Accession no.
- 1996.343
More by Julia Margaret Cameron in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00013010
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