Beatrice

Julia Margaret Cameron

1866 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

In this photograph, modeled closely on a painting then attributed to the Italian Baroque artist Guido Reni, May Prinsep plays the role of Beatrice Cenci, a sixteenth-century Roman woman whose sad tale of rape, revenge, and execution was retold in a nineteenth-century play by Percy Bysshe Shelley. While Cameron’s portraits of “men great thro’ genius” had the built-in appeal of celebrity, her portraits of “women great thro’ love” most often depended upon literary, artistic, historical, or biblical allusion for broader commercial appeal.

Artist

Julia Margaret Cameron

Date

1866

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1969