3-044-458 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Rosebud Garden of Girls, 1868. In June 1868 Julia Margaret Cameron took the opportunity of photographing the four Fraser-Tytler sisters - Nelly, Christiana, Mary, and Ethel - during their visit to the residence of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, at Farringford. The title of the work is taken from a line in Tennyson’s "Maud" (1855), a poem that he considered one of his finest achievements. Her group of soporific maidens set against a lush floral background is more of an attempt to capture the quality and feeling of Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. Pioneering British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is considered to be one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She took up photography at the age of 48, after her daughter gave her a camera as a present.