What: A Study of a Holy Family, ca. 1872 -- an albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815-1879.
Where to find it: On exhibit in the IU Art Museum collection.
Why you should care: Although Julia Margaret Cameron, the affluent wife of a jurist and classical scholar, only took up photography later in life, she fervently embraced it. Concentrating on portraits and allegorical subjects, Cameron used her family, friends and household staff as her models. In this example, the sitters are presumably her parlor maid Mary Hillier, Freddy Gould and Lionel Cameron. The realism of the medium and her personal iconography often blurred the line between portraiture, allegory, religious imagery and genre. Sometimes sitters became identified with a type. Hillier, for example, was called "Island Mary" or "Mary Madonna" because she played the Virgin so often. In addition to this work, the IU Art Museum's collection includes a portrait of her husband Charles Hay Cameron and a rare album of 101 reduced albumen prints compiled by the artist for her son Hardinge Hay Cameron as "a board of ship companion"
