Unknown young woman

1 portrait

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Unknown young woman

by Oscar Gustav Rejlander
albumen print, 1863-1866
8 1/8 in. x 5 7/8 in. (205 mm x 149 mm) overall
Purchased with help from the Art Fund, Jane and Michael Wilson and Stephen Barry, 2015
Primary Collection
NPG P2011(26)

Artistback to top

  • Oscar Gustav Rejlander (1813-1875), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 98 portraits, Sitter in 2 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • 100 Photographs, 2018, p. 27 Read entry

    Oscar Rejlander (1813-75) made a name for himself in the 1850s as the creator of composite photographs, combining two or more negatives to create artificial compositions. For this reason he is often described as ‘the father of Photoshop’, as computer technologies have now made such pictures commonplace. However, in the late 1850s and 1860s Rejlander turned his attention to expressive portraiture, becoming one of the most naturalistic photographers of the time. He inspired the photographers Julia Margaret Cameron and Lewis Carroll, and provided so-called ‘photographic studies’ to painters, including the Pre-Raphaelites and their associates, such as John Everett Millais, G.F. Watts, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This picture of a pensive young woman is one of seventy-one photographs by Rejlander contained in an album purchased by the National Portrait Gallery in 2015. An inscription in the album records that it was lent to both Prince Albert and Pope Pius IX.

  • 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. 66

Portrait setback to top

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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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