The photographs:
Madonnas and Angelic Children
Julia Margaret CAMERON
British, 1815–79
The first born, 1865
albumen silver photograph
20.1 x 25.7 cm
The Wilson Centre for Photography
97:5591
The baby in this photograph is Cameron's first born grandson, Archie
Cameron. Archie was the child of Cameron's eldest son, Eugene Hay Cameron and
his wife Carolyn Catherine Browne. Julia Margaret Cameron took this
photograph and many other studies of baby Archie when the young family
visited the Isle of Wight in 1865 from their home in the West Indies.
This photograph is dated April 1865 and therefore is one of the earliest studies
of Archie. Cameron photographed him regularly between April and August that
year, often including him in Biblical scenes as the Christ child, the infant
Samuel or in studies representing the Holy Family.
Though Archie appears at the centre of this Holy Family group, his real parents do not. In this study
Mary Ryan, Cameron's maid, leans over the sleeping child.
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