The photographs:
Idylls and Fancy Subjects
Julia Margaret CAMERON
British, 1815–79
Paul and Virginia, 1864
albumen silver photograph
20.5 x 26.1 cm
The Wilson Centre for Photography
84:1559
This photograph is modelled on a romantic novel that was widely circulated
in the Victorian era. The French hero and heroine appear in Bernardin de
Saint Pierre's story Paul et Virginie (1787) as star-crossed lovers who knew
each other as children in Mauritius. Virginia dies in a shipwreck and Paul
dies of grief shortly after.
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