Ellen Terry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Ellen Terry
by Frederick Hollyer
platinotype cabinet card, circa 1890
4 in. x 5 7/8 in. (103 mm x 150 mm) image size
Purchased, 1982
Photographs Collection
NPG x16968
Artistback to top
- Frederick Hollyer (1838-1933), Photographer and art publisher. Artist or producer associated with 111 portraits, Sitter associated with 6 portraits.
This portraitback to top
Photographed in her forties, this intimate portrait demonstrates Terry's youthful quality, which enabled her to play young heroines for many years. Hollyer took up photography in about 1860, and established a business in the photographic reproduction of works of art, notably the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the drawings of Burne-Jones. He set aside one day a week for portraiture, photographing his friends, including the famous actress.
Placesback to top
- Place made: United Kingdom: England, London (photographer's studio, 8-9 Pembroke Square, Kensington, London)
Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top
- Dame Ellen Terry 1847-1928 (7 June 2008 - 9 November 2008)
Events of 1890back to top
Current affairs
William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, publishes In Darkest England, in which he compares the supposedly 'civilised' England with 'Darkest Africa'. A critique of the degenerate state of society, Booth also proposed social welfare schemes to alleviate the sufferings of the urban poor.The world's first electric underground railway opens to the public in London, passing under the Thames and linking the City of London and Stockwell.
Art and science
William Morris founds the Kelmscott Press, a revival of art and craft techniques of book printing. Publications included The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896), with decorative designs and typeface by Morris and illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones.Vincent Van Gogh dies after shooting himself in the chest in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray first appears in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine .
International
Cecil Rhodes, organiser of the diamond-mining De Beers Consolidated Mines, becomes premier of Cape Colony as part of his expansionist aims in South Africa.In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Otto von Bismarck.
An international anti-slavery conference is held in Brussels, leading to the signing of a treaty by all the major maritime nations covering action to be taken against the trade in Africa and suppression of it by sea.
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