H. W. Longfellow
1868, printed c. 1893
Medium
Photogravure, plate 18 from the album "Lord Tennyson and his Friends" (1893)
Dimensions
Image: 24.5 × 17.5 cm (9 11/16 × 6 15/16 in.); Album page: 44.9 × 37.1 cm (17 11/16 × 14 5/8 in.)
Classification
photogravure
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
140498
Art Historical Context
Julia Margaret Cameron's portrait of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captures a moment of literary connection in the Victorian era. Created in 1868 and later reproduced as a photogravure around 1893, this image forms plate 18 in the album "Lord Tennyson and his Friends." The album gathers portraits of prominent writers and intellectuals centered around Alfred, Lord Tennyson, highlighting the close-knit circles of 19th-century literary figures on both sides of the Atlantic. Cameron, a pioneering photographer, approached her subjects with a distinctive soft-focus style that emphasized ...
About the Artist
Julia Margaret Cameron · 1815–1879
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879), born Julia Margaret Pattle in Calcutta, India, emerged as one of the 19th century's most innovative photographers despite beginning her career at age 48. The daughter of East India Company official James Pattle and French aristocrat Adeline de l'Etang, she was educated in France from 1818 to 1834 alongside her six surviving sisters, renowned for their beauty and...