George Frederic Watts
2 of 119 portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron
- Overview
- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
George Frederic Watts
by Julia Margaret Cameron
albumen print, 1864
9 7/8 in. x 7 7/8 in. (250 mm x 200 mm)
Purchased, 1982
Primary Collection
NPG P215
Sitterback to top
- George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), Painter and sculptor; Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. Sitter in 43 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 93 portraits.
Artistback to top
- Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), Pioneer photographer. Artist or producer associated with 119 portraits, Sitter in 9 portraits.
This portraitback to top
Cameron probably first met Watts in the late 1840s. Watts was a prominent member of the artistic salon of Cameron's younger sister, Sarah Prinsep, and settled himself with her and her husband, the painter Val Prinsep, at Little Holland House. As Sarah wrote: 'He came to stay three days: he stayed thirty years'.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Victorian Portraits Resource Pack, p. 4
- Funnell, Peter, Victorian Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery Collection, 1996, p. 4
- Prodger, Phillip, Victorian Giants, The Birth of Art Photography, 2018 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 1 March - 20 May 2018), p. 200
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 646
Events of 1864back to top
Current affairs
First of the Contagious Diseases Act. These acts allowed for the arrest, medical inspection and confinement of any woman suspected of being a prostitute in the port towns. Following huge public outcry over their discrimination against women, notably led by Josephine Butler, leader of the Ladies' National Association, the acts were eventually repealed.Octavia Hill starts work on slums, and the International Working Men's Association is founded in London.
Art and science
The Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell presents his discoveries in the field of electromagnetics to the Royal Society. His paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field expresses the basic laws of electricity and magnetism in unified fashion. Maxwell's equations, as his rules came to be known, helped create modern physics, laying the foundation for future work in special relativity and quantum mechanics.International
Austria and Prussia combine forces to seize Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark.Britain cedes Corfu, acquired from France in the Second Treaty of Paris (1815) to Greece. Although Britain had vigorously suppressed an uprising in 1849 in Cephalonia aiming to restore Iolian islands, the government changed policy throughout the 1850s and 60s.
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