Lady Clementina Hawarden
1859-1861 (ca)
Clementina Maude and Cornwallis Hawarden, Dundrum; Photographic Study

Albumen print, from wet collodion negative
Victoria and Albert Museum
Given by Lady Clementina Tottenham, Museum number: 457:166-1968
 
Curatorial description (Accessed: 29 March 2016)
This is a tableau set outdoors on the family's Irish estate at Dundrum in County Tipperary. Viscount Hawarden and his eldest daughter appear to be dressed as estate workers. They pose on a low dais with a backdrop, surrounded by cleaning tools: a brush, a broom and a mop. Clementina holds a kettle and her father a jug. Beside him is an open beer bottle. A flowerpot and a wheelbarrow suggest that they are meant to represent gardeners as well as general maintenance staff. If she had exhibited this photograph, Lady Hawarden would perhaps have cropped the print to remove signs of the dais and the backdrop.
 
Impersonations of workers by aristocratic or wealthy photographers were not uncommon at this period. Robert Crawshay, for example, posed his daughter as a fishwife in a photograph in the V&A Collection.
 
LL/66250