Mary Georgiana Caroline, Lady Filmer
English, 1838-1903
Lady Filmer in her Drawing Room
INV-1981
Mary Georgiana Caroline, Lady Filmer
English, 1838-19031863–68
Lady Filmer in her Drawing Room
Mary Georgiana Caroline, Lady Filmer English, 1838-1903 →19th centuryalbumen print from collodion negativemixed media
Date
1863–68
Medium
Albumen prints, collage and watercolor
Dimensions
Image: 22.5 × 28.2 cm (8 7/8 × 11 1/8 in.); Mount: 36.9 × 42.8 cm (14 1/2 × 16 13/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Through prior gifts of Mrs. Jack Diamond and Michael Glicker
In Victorian England, aristocratic women produced new meanings for photographs by cutting them up and pasting them into elaborate watercolor scenes. Lady Filmer employed photocollage to bolster her position in society. Here she placed herself at the heart of a gathering of fashionably attired friends and family, making a photocollage album—that is, performing the very activity that produced this work. The composition revolves around Filmer’s most important guest: Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, with whom she certainly flirted and may even have had an affair. The prince is shown leaning against the table, his hat at a rakish angle and waistline trimmed flatteringly by Lady Filmer’s knife. By contrast, her husband, Sir Edmund Filmer, is shown in the lower right—near the family dog.
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