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'Popular Actresses'

1 portrait of Miss Swanborough

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© National Portrait Gallery, London

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'Popular Actresses'

by Frederick Holland Mares, after Alexander Bassano, and Clarkington & Co (Charles Clarkington), and Joseph Richard James, and Horatio Nelson King, and Camille Silvy, and possibly Leonida Caldesi, and Adolphe Paul Auguste Beau, and Thomas Cranfiel
albumen carte-de-visite, 1863
3 1/2 in. x 2 1/4 in. (88 mm x 56 mm) image size
Photographs Collection
NPG x137000

Artistsback to top

Sittersback to top

Related worksback to top

  • NPG x1178: Agnes Kelly Boucicault (née Robertson) (source portrait)
  • NPG x38851: Fanny Stirling; Fanny Stirling (source portrait)
  • NPG Ax25043: Eleanora ('Ellen') Kean (née Tree) (source portrait)
  • NPG x22399: Amy Sedgwick (Sarah Gardiner) (source portrait)

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1863back to top

Current affairs

The opening of the world's first underground railway, with the Metropolitan Railway running trains between Bishop's Street, Padington and Farringdon. Work had begun in 1860, using the 'cut-and-cover' method of construction. The Metropolitan line inspired the construction of other underground railways - the Parisian 'Metro' took its name from the line.
The Football Association is founded.

Art and science

Julia Margaret Cameron takes up photography, taking portraits of some of the most celebrated figures of the day, with her romantic style capturing the sense of nostalgia and longing that characterised the age.
Kingsley's Water Babies; A Fairy Tale for Children is published, the hugely popular tale of drowned chimney sweep Tom's moral education in the river world of the water babies. It inspired the 1978 film starring James Mason.

International

At an international conference, the Geneva Public Welfare Society calls on the sixteen nations present to form voluntary units to help the wartime wounded. The society, comprised of five Swiss citizens and led by Henri Dunant, who had been deeply affected by the casualties he had witnessed at the Battle of Solferino, became the National Red Cross Societies, adopting the emblem of a red cross on white background.

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