Exhibition History: R.A., 1973;
Pre-Raphaelite Photography,
A British Council Exhibition, 1983;
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Exhibition,
UK90 Festival: Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, September 22 through November 14, 1990;
Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, Nagoya, November 21 through December 9, 1990; Ishibashi
Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation, Kurume, January 6 through February 11, 1991
Provenance
Current Location: Victoria and Albert Museum
Catalog Number: 819,42
Note: The Victoria and Albert has another print,
much lighter and severely cropped (Record No. 1739/1939).
The state of the two Victoria and Albert Museum prints tells much about DGR's
involvement with these photographs. In this, the
larger copy, a good deal of space is
left around the sitter, who is seated in DGR's garden, in full view, and facing to her right. A
decorated screen is placed a few feet behind her; beyond that is foliage, though it is
scarcely discernible as such. The print shows where Gordon Bottomly
worked on the original print with a brush to
disguise where the top of the print had been damaged
during later efforts to mount it.
The
smaller print in the album shows DGR
intervening on the original photograph. In this case he has used a brush to paint on the
print and smooth out Mrs. Morris's dress (along the left sleeve and also among the
folds by her left leg). The second print also illustrates a characteristic alteration of another
kind that one finds in the album prints. This second
print is much lighter and has been cropped so that the screen takes up virtually
the whole of the background.
Production History
This is an early print made in 1865.
Bibliography
Bartram,
Pre-Raphaelite Photography,
38-40 and chapter 5.
Bartram,
The Pre-Raphaelite Camera, chapter 5.
DGR 1828-1882: An Exhibition, [Tokyo 1990] 185 (no. 147).
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
At least three copies of this pose survive, one in the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, the other two in the Victoria and Albert Museum's Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden). Posed by Rossetti, 1865 . This is the larger of the two Victoria and Albert prints.
The state of the two Victoria and Albert Museum prints tells much about DGR's involvement with these photographs. In this, the larger copy, a good deal of space is left around the sitter, who is seated in DGR's garden, in full view, and facing to her right. A decorated screen is placed a few feet behind her; beyond that is foliage, though it is scarcely discernible as such. The print shows where Gordon Bottomly worked on the original print with a brush to disguise where the top of the print had been damaged during later efforts to mount it.
The smaller print in the album shows DGR intervening on the original photograph. In this case he has used a brush to paint on the print and smooth out Mrs. Morris's dress (along the left sleeve and also among the folds by her left leg). The second print also illustrates a characteristic alteration of another kind that one finds in the album prints. This second print is much lighter and has been cropped so that the screen takes up virtually the whole of the background.
Production History
This is an early print made in 1865.
Bibliography