Julia Margaret Cameron, British, 1815 - 1879
Title: After the Manner of Perugino (Mary Ryan)
Date: c.1865
Medium: Albumen print
Dimensions:
Mount: 40.6 x 30.5 cm
20 x 11 cm
Signed: lower right [on mount): Julia Margaret Cameron
Credit Line: Purchased, 2018
Object Number: NGI.2018.55
Description'After the Manner of Perugino (Mary Ryan)' is a photographic study of Mary Ryan (1848-1914), in the style of renaissance Italian artist, Perugino (1450-1523). At the age of 10 Mary Ryan was saved from a life of begging on Putney Heath along with her Irish mother. Touched by her grace, British pictorialist photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) took on the upbringing of Mary with her own children. In return, Mary became a loyal maid and a muse for the photographer, before marrying Sir Henry Stedman Cotton, of the Indian Civil Service, who fell in love with a portrait of Mary by Cameron. Like many of Cameron's portraits, this print is cropped very close to the sitter's face. The artist's signature is visible in the bottom right-hand corner of the support.
Inscriptionon verso: Mary Ryan