Julia Margaret Cameron and Jane Austen are each luminaries of the nineteenth century who explored the interior lives of girls of their respective fields, pictures and fiction. The legacies of those two trailblazing British girls converge with the Morgan Library & Museum’s concurrent exhibitions A Vigorous Thoughts: Jane Austen at 250 and Arresting Magnificence: Julia Margaret Cameron. Each draw on the ladies’s visible and literary archives for instance the complexities and historic significance of their lives.
Writing within the late 18th and early nineteenth century, amid the rise of the British center class and the constraints of inflexible gender roles, Austen captured the wishes and anxieties of girls with needle-sharp precision. In her prose, the interiority of her characters consists of suppressed longing, quiet riot, and ethical reflection. A Vigorous Thoughts immerses guests in Austen’s world by means of manuscripts, portraits, and interval interiors that collectively evoke the environment of her life and work.
Set up view of a copy of Jane Austen’s writing desk and a nineteenth century wooden chair in A Vigorous Thoughts on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Upon coming into the exhibition, a small desk with a wood chair shows a quill and handwritten letters, set towards a backdrop of leafy inexperienced wallpaper. This tableau recreates Austen’s writing desk from the eating room of her dwelling in Chawton, England, now preserved as a museum. {A photograph} of the historic home hangs above, anchoring the show in its real-world setting.
The modest recreation of Austen’s writing desk contrasts with the wood bookshelf close by, which strikes from the intimate to the worldwide, displaying Delight and Prejudice translations in a number of completely different languages. Austen’s imprint is clear throughout varied creative varieties, international locations, and generations. A glass case shows uncommon books from the nineteenth century, all biographical accounts of the writer, by writers resembling Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen and Oscar Fay Adams; on the wall behind it are portraits of her, together with a miniature watercolor on ivory by an unidentified artist and a metal engraving by William Dwelling Lizars.
nineteenth century uncommon books and portraits depicting Austen and her life in A Vigorous Thoughts on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Generations later, the fascination with Austen persists — after I visited, the joy was palpable round two standout objects on show: a recreation of Austen’s lustrous silk jacket and her famed ring. The gold and turquoise ring — on view in the USA for the primary time — sparked debate over what artifacts are too traditionally important to depart England after singer Kelly Clarkson briefly acquired it at public sale in 2012.
One other main spotlight is Amy Sherald’s portray of a younger Black man carrying a sweater that includes architectural designs, “A Single Man in Possession of a Good Fortune” (2019). The title is impressed by the well-known opening line of Delight and Prejudice, which references the entanglement of wealth, gender, and marriage: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” That such a line would possibly resonate with younger Black males in Twenty first-century America speaks to the endurance and attain of Austen’s writing. A Vigorous Thoughts provides a visually placing and archivally wealthy exploration of Austen’s life and legacy. By combining recreated inside design parts with books, portraits, and even modern artwork, the exhibition successfully conveys her lasting relevance throughout historic and cultural contexts.
Set up view of Amy Sherald’s “A Single Man in Possession of a Good Fortune” (2019) in A Vigorous Thoughts on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Throughout the hallway, Arresting Magnificence examines the life and work of Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Although not as extensively referred to as Austen, Cameron is deeply important to the historical past of pictures; her soft-focus, allegorical portraits exemplify her titular need to “arrest all beauty that came before [her].”
Set up view of Julia Margaret Cameron’s “Florence Fisher” (1872), “The Astronomer” (1867), “The Annunciation” (1865-66), “The Red and White Roses” (1865), “Daisies Pied” (1870-74), and “Prospero and Miranda” (1865) in Arresting Magnificence on the Morgan Library & Museum.
Cameron’s dreamy photographic gaze is straight away obvious within the six works created between 1865 and 1872 that open the present, every portraying a distinct sitter. A young close-up portrait of “Florence Fisher” (1872) depicts the daughter of a pal who generally posed for Cameron. “The Astronomer” (1867), a shadowy portrait of an nameless sitter with an mental look, is maybe impressed by Cameron’s scientist pal, Sir John Herschel; it displays the Victorian-era fascination with science and philosophy. A religious portrait, “The Annunciation” (1865–66), portrays fashions performing out the story of archangel Gabriel’s declaration to the Virgin Mary, whereas the floral motifs in “The Red and White Roses” (1865) and “Daisies Pied” (1870–74) symbolize Victorian concepts of femininity and purity in pastoral scenes.
Set up view of Julia Margaret Cameron’s “Sappho” (1865) in Arresting Magnificence on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Cameron’s life was punctuated with intervals of deep unhappiness and loneliness, and her images usually evoke related emotions. The fashions specific quiet moments of solitude and reflection. Her oeuvre is replete with themes associated to Christianity, well-known literature (particularly for a Victorian viewers), and younger girls. In a single notably shifting {photograph}, “Sappho” (1865), Cameron’s maid, Mary Hillier, poses as the traditional Greek poet from Lesbos. Regardless of the Victorian sensibilities concerning girls’s home and subservient roles, Cameron imbued her photographic topics with company and depth; girls and women, whether or not novice fashions, servants, or household associates, are virtually at all times the protagonists. In 1874, she labored notably strenuously on a collection of images illustrating Alfred Tennyson’s narrative poetry cycle Idylls of the King (1859–85) upon the author’s invitation.
A replica of Cameron’s posthumously revealed memoir on view exhibits the mark of her hand as a author. Her daughter died in 1873, and the next yr she revealed Annals of My Glass Home, by which she attracts heart-wrenching parallels between her profession as a photographer and the lifetime of a rising little one.
Amid monetary points, Cameron and her husband left England for Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1875. Her intimate relationship to the British Empire is simple; she was a White, British girl who was born in India and died in Sri Lanka. “A Group of Kalutara Peasants” (1878) and “Two Young Women” (c. 1875–79), made within the closing years of her life, struck me as notably indicative of colonial dynamics. Each images depict primarily nameless plantation staff who labored for the Camerons. The contrasting distance between the labor of the photographer and the plantation employee is uncomfortable. Students have usually maintained that such photos present extra kindness towards their topics than these of different British photographers, with their sharp colonialist gaze. Nonetheless, I ponder if the softness and vulnerability communicated in Cameron’s work ought to essentially excuse the brutality of imperialism upholding her place as a photographer within the colonies. Maybe this dynamic begets ambivalence extra so than both celebration or detraction. Whether or not she photographed her personal social circle in England or working girls in Sri Lanka, Empire stays the backdrop.
Set up view of Julia Margaret Cameron’s “Florence Fisher” (1872), “The Astronomer” (1867), “The Annunciation” (1865-66), “The Red and White Roses” (1865), “Daisies Pied” (1870-74), and “Prospero and Miranda” (1865) in Arresting Magnificence on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Austen and Cameron have been exceptionally gifted and artistic girls whose legacies usually seem extra benevolent than these of many others from their social class and imperial context. Nonetheless, it’s essential to grapple with the colonial constructions — and the labor of colonized girls and communities — that helped maintain the lives and work of those pioneering creative figures usually celebrated as feminist heroes. What would it not imply to admire these girls’s inventive brilliance whereas acknowledging the inequalities that formed their worlds? Whose tales stay untold behind their celebrated legacies? And the way would possibly we broaden our understanding of feminist artwork and literary historical past to create space for these voices?
Each exhibitions gesture towards the privilege and energy these girls held inside their social worlds, but I’m left questioning concerning the views of marginalized girls of their eras. With out discounting the creative and literary contributions of Austen and Cameron, or the general gender hierarchies of the time, would possibly these unacknowledged experiences problem or complicate the methods we now learn the feminist dimensions of the ladies on the middle of those exhibitions?
Set up view of Julia Margaret Cameron’s Albumen silver print and facsimile textual content of “Vivien and Merlin” from Idylls of the King and Different Poems, Vol. 1 in Arresting Magnificence on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Set up view of Austen’s gold and turquoise ring (c. 1750–1800)in A Vigorous Thoughts on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Set up view of Julia Margaret Cameron’s “A Group of Kalutara Peasants” (1878) and “Two Young Women” (ca. 1875–79) in Arresting Magnificence on the Morgan Library & Museum (photograph Alexandra M. Thomas/Hyperallergic)
Set up views of A Vigorous Thoughts: Jane Austen at 250, Morgan Stanley West Gallery (© The Morgan Library & Museum, pictures by Janny Chiu, 2025)
Julia Margaret Cameron, “The Rosebud Garden of Girls” (1868), albumen print (© The Royal Photographic Society Assortment on the V&A, acquired with the beneficiant help of the Nationwide Lottery Heritage Fund and Artwork Fund)
“J. Austen: after an original family portrait” (1873), metal engraving; The Morgan Library & Museum, bought by J. P. Morgan Jr., 1920 (pictures by Graham S. Haber)
A Vigorous Thoughts: Jane Austen at 250 and Arresting Magnificence: Julia Margaret Cameron proceed on the Morgan Library & Museum (225 Madison Avenue, Murray Hill, Manhattan) by means of September 14.
A Vigorous Thoughts was organized by Dale Stinchcomb and Juliette Wells. Arresting Magnificence was organized by Joel Smith, Richard L. Menschel and Allison Pappas.
