La Madonna Riposata
Julia Margaret Cameron British, born India
Not on view
In the first two years of Cameron’s photography, religious themes held an important place alongside portraiture. The remarkably expressive and emotionally versatile Mary Hillier was often cast as the Virgin Mary, costumed and posed in scenes reminiscent of Italian painting. The close physical and spiritual bond of mother and child that is illustrated so vividly in these pictures may have been especially poignant for Cameron. She was, after all, given her first camera at Christmas 1863 by her daughter and son-in-law as they moved away and left this mother of six, in today’s vernacular, an “empty nester.”
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