Hardinge Hay Cameron

May 1864

Medium

Albumen silver print

Dimensions

24.8 × 19.5 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-399518

> In his influential 1859 publications *Self-Help,* Samuel Smiles described the home as “the very nucleus of national character; and from that source . . . issue the habits, principles and maxims, which govern public as well as private life.” For Julia Margaret Cameron, family life formed the cornerstone of her art. Her five sons were all pressed into service before the camera and often helped in practical matters. Describing her earliest experiments in her *Annals*, Cameron remarked: “Hardinge, being on his Oxford vacation, helped me in the difficulty of focussing,” practical advice that contributed to her “first success” with *Annie* (see [84.XZ.186.69](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/58647/julia-margaret-cameron-annie-british-january-1864/)). > > In this 1864 portrait, Hardinge (1846-1911), Cameron’s third son, is presented in the guise of an artist. The style of presentation is Titianesque—the lighting is somber and moody, creating the very faintest of modeling in the skin tones, so that the subject’s facial features are clothed in a subdued, painterly chiaroscuro. The practice of dressing up and assuming a role was familiar to the Cameron children on account of …