JULIA MARGARET CAMERON (1815-1879)

This powerful portrait is from the series of studies Mrs Cameron made of Herschel at his home at Collingwood in April 1867.

Herschel and Cameron met in South Africa in 1836 and became acquainted largely due to a shared passion for the arts. In 1864 Cameron wrote to Herschel, acknowledging his status as mentor: 'Your eye can best detect and your imagination conceive all that is to be done and is left undone, for you were my first Teacher & to you I owe all the first experiences & insights which were given to me when you sent me in India a score of years ago...the first specimens of Talbotypes...'