
Luke Batterham
Senior Valuer
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£2,000 - £4,000
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Senior Valuer
The original negative for this image was created in 1867 at Little Holland House, most likely when Carlyle (1795-1881), the historian, essayist and moralist, was sitting for a portrait by G.F. Watts (a close friend of Cameron). A contemporary critique of the photograph states: "The shaggy philosopher appears in every form of picturesque ruggedness, but there is one profile of him which gives the fire and tenderness present in no other famous face as it is in his, and which no painter has caught as well as Mrs Cameron has" (V&A online catalogue, vam.ac.uk/item/O16477). This image was printed by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, Julia Margaret's youngest son, who established a portrait studio on Mortimer Street, London, in the 1880s. He went on to found the Linked Ring, the influential photographic society that expounded the virtues of photography as both art form and science.