[Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen]

negative 1864; print about 1875

Medium

Carbon print

Dimensions

32.1 × 32.1 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-282284

> This image of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) is one of the few known photographs of a female celebrity by Julia Margaret Cameron. Terry, the popular child actress of the British stage, was sixteen years old when Cameron made this image. This photograph was most likely taken just after she married the eccentric painter, George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), who was thirty years her senior. They spent their honeymoon in the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight where Cameron resided. > > Cameron’s portrait echoes Watt’s study of Terry titled *Choosing* (1864, [National Portrait Gallery, London](https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw06269/Ellen-Terry-Choosing)). As in the painting, Terry is shown in profile with her eyes closed, an ethereal beauty in a melancholic dream state. In this guise, Terry embodies the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of womanhood rather than appearing as the wild boisterous teenager she was known to be. The round (“tondo”) format of this photograph was popular among Pre-Raphaelite artists. > > Cameron titled another print of this image *Sadness* (see [84.XZ.186.52](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/58630/julia-margaret-cameron-sadness-british-1…