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Lot 69

CAMERON (JULIA MARGARET)
Déjatch Alámayou & Báshá Félika, King Theodore's Son & Captain Speedy, [July, 1868]

15 June 2016, 14:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £3,500 inc. premium

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CAMERON (JULIA MARGARET)

Déjatch Alámayou & Báshá Félika, King Theodore's Son & Captain Speedy, albumen print, signed, inscribed and dated by Julia Margaret Cameron in black ink under the image on the mount ("From life registered photograph July 1868") with the title written in English and Amharic beneath, toned with one very small infill in ink, size of image 280 x 215mm., overall 365 x 290mm., [July, 1868]

Footnotes

PREVIOUSLY UNRECORDED VERSION OF CAMERON'S "KING THEODORE'S SON & CAPTAIN SPEEDY".

Orphaned in tragic circumstances in the weeks following the Battle of Magdala in 1868, Déjatch Alámáyou (1861–1879), heir of Emperor Tewodros (Theodore) II of Ethiopia, was brought to England by British forces while under the guardianship of Captain Tristram Speedy (1836–1911). On arrival in England, Alámáyou was introduced to Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her summer home on the Isle of Wight. It was at this time that Cameron took a series of photographs of Déjatch, his attendant Casa, and Captain Speedy. Charles Darwin's wife Emma would later write to her son George: "Yesterday the little Abyssinian prince & his Capt. Speedy came to be pho[tograph]ed - they dressed up in Abyssinian dress & we went to see them" (Ford & Cox, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs, 2001). This image is not in Ford & Cox, who record 2 other versions of this composition.

Provenance: Thought to have been purchased from Julia Margret Cameron by William Whitehead; by family descent to the present owner.

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