Alexander Bassano (English, 1829-1913)
Alice, Edith and Ina Liddell, 1876 
Albumen print, mounted as a cabinet card
14.8 x 10.0 cm 

As the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's "Alice" stories and the model for his most inspired photographic images, the childhood portraits of Alice Liddell occupy a unique place in English cultural history. This portrait of Alice, surrounded by two sisters and taken by the leading British portrait photographer Bassano, captures the mature beauty that grew from the ephemeral adolescence which so enthralled Carroll. Edith, Alice's younger sister seated on the left, died  unexpectedly in the same year the group sat for Bassano and shortly before her own marriage to the cricket player, Aubrey Harcourt.

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (English, 1832-1898)
Xie (Alexandra) Kitchin as a "Dane", 1873
Albumen print from a collodion negative
21.0 x 16.5 cm on

A young girl, Alexandra “Xie” Kitchin, fixes the viewer with her direct stare in an 1873 albumen print by Lewis Carroll, best known as the author of Alice in Wonderland. Xie’s father, a mathematician and classicist, was a close friend of Carroll’s at Oxford, but it is to her mother that the roots of this image can be traced.  She was a childhood friend of Princess Alexandra of Denmark who was to become the Princess of Wales.  Xie was named after the Princess. Carroll once declared the key to obtaining excellence in a photograph was simply to “take a lens and put Xie before it.” This is the only known untrimmed print from the negative and was almost certainly the personal print of the artist.  All other known prints have been trimmed to cabinet card or carte-de-visite sizes.

David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1802-1870 & 1821-1848)
The Bird Cage (the Misses Watson), 1916
Carbon print by Jessie Bertram derived from the original calotype negative by Hill & Adamson, 1843-1847
20.2 x 15.0 cm mounted on 38.3 x 26.5 cm paper, ruled in gilt

Hill & Adamson's pioneering body of work was championed by the efforts of photographers and publishers such as Thomas and James Craig Annan, Andrew Elliot, and Alfred Stieglitz who reproduced The Bird Cage in Camera Work 28, 1909. The Edinburgh photographer Jessie Bertram (1881-1954) reprinted selections from their works using the durable carbon process, working from the original calotype negative, producing beautiful and permanent prints.

John Beasley Greene (American, born in France, 1832-1856)
Venus de Milo on rooftop in Paris, 1852-1853
Waxed paper negative
31.2 x 24.3 cm

Amelia E. Bergner (American, 1853-1923)
Seven botanical specimens, circa 1877
Photogram on chromate based printing-out paper
28.9 x 22.9 cm, corners clipped, mounted on 40.7 x 34.2 cm album page
Partial watermark "Linen Record" visible

Amelia Bergner came from a prominent Philadelphia family, the daughter of a brewer, and was active in musical, cultural and philanthropic circles. She is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

This celadon-colored photogram appears to be made by the process discovered by the Scottish inventor Mungo Ponton (1801-1880). Bergner's work reflects a popular 19th century practice of placing leaves, ferns and other botanical specimens directly onto sensitized paper and then exposing them to the sun. This practice dates to the earliest photographic experiments by William Henry Fox Talbot, most notably followed by the cyanotypes of Anna Atkins. 

The only known art works by Amelia Bergner consist of floral and plant arrangements collected in a botanical album with uniformly printed ornate borders, from which the present print originates. It is likely that her interest in art, rather than classifying the region’s flora, prompted her to produce the album. Her cameraless compositions were carefully arranged and deliberately decorative. 

Examples from Bergner’s album are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Musée d’Orsay.

Julia Margaret Cameron (English, born in India, 1815-1879)
"Circe" (Kate Keown), 1865
Albumen print
25.2 x 20.2 cm mounted on 32.5 x 27.6 cm paper
Signed, titled, numbered "2", annotated "Fr. Life" in ink, and embossed "Colnaghi" stamp, on mount

Cameron sought to record through the faces of her family and friends the qualities of innocence, wisdom, piety, or passion ascribed to great biblical, historical, and legendary figures. Cameron used a long exposure and shallow depth of field to give that slight sense of animation which merges the young girl, Kate Keown, with the mythic character Circe, seemingly bringing her into the viewer's presence in this fine print.  In Greek mythology, Circe is a goddess of magic, the daughter of Helios, the sun god, and Perse, an Oceanid nymph. Renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs, Circe is exiled to the solitary island of Aeaea by her father Helios for killing her husband. Once there she lures sailors to the island, including the crew of Odysseus, transforming them into swine.