George Frederic Watts by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79)

Portrait of George Frederic Watts

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79)

c.1865-69

Albumen print

10 in. x 7 7/8 in. (254 mm x 199 mm)

Given by H. Saxe Wyndham, 1939

Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Julia Cameron was a close friend of the artist G. F. Watts, who had a room at her sister Sara Prinsep's house, Little Holland Park, in London. [Commentary continues below; click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]

Watts had painted Cameron's portrait in the early 1850s, and she returned the compliment by taking a number of photographs of him. This one captures him at work, painting The Red Cross Knight and Una (exhibited in 1869), a subject he had taken from Spenser's The Faerie Queene. The theme is a patriotic one: the Red Cross Knight turns out to be St George, the patron saint of England. Watts had also taken the Red Cross Knight's slaying of the dragon as the subject of his fresco in the Upper Waiting Hall of the Houses of Parliament (1853). It must have had special meaning for him, and, with her colonial background, it must have appealed to Cameron too. Watts is shown intent on his subject, utterly absorbed in its rendition. — Jacqueline Banerjee

Sources

The Red Cross Knight Overcoming the Dragon. Art in Parliament. Web. 1 March 2015.

Marsh, Jan. "This Portrait" (extended commentary). National Portrait Gallery. Web. 1 March 2015.

Wilson, A. N. "Julia Margaret Cameron." In Eminent Victorians. London: BBC Books, 1989. 203-36.

Last modified 1 March 2015