A section of wallpaper
Sarah Angelina Acland (1849 - 1930)
Category
Photographs
Date
1897
Materials
Photographic paper
Measurements
5.50 x 6.50 in
Place of origin
Broadclyst
Order this imageCollection
Killerton, Devon
NT 922353
Caption
A section of wallpaper may seem an odd subject to photograph and have mounted. Yet for Sarah Angelina Acland it was both in keeping with her penchant for recording domestic interiors and of family interest. Acland had spent lengthy spells as a child at Killerton House, home of her grandfather Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet (1787–1871), and where her father Sir Henry Wentworth Acland, 1st Baronet (1815–1900), was born. She later found the floral wallpaper design appealing, describing it in her memoirs as ‘fairly dark green with a white pattern … printed from old square blocks’. She also stepped back to capture the wider room within which it hung, calling it ‘Archduke John’s bedroom’ in reference to Johann von Österreich (1752–1859), with whom her grandfather had been acquainted. Miss Acland felt the influence of photography from an early age. She lived in Oxford, a city that is rich in photographic connections, posed as a child for Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll, 1832–98), and had brothers and cousins who also pursued the medium. She was given a camera for her 42nd birthday and, as with Cameron, an abundance of monochrome portraiture ensued. Yet it was her pioneering work in colour photography, beginning in 1899, that really propelled her to fame within the field. She worked through all the early colour processes available to her, including Sanger Shepherd, autochrome and Dufaycolor. Seen in this light, her appreciation of the dark green wallpaper seems to chime with the colour-rich practice she went on to develop as a photographer.
Summary
Albumen print photograph of a section of floral wallpaper taken by photographer Sarah Angelina Acland (daughter of Henry Acland), c.1897. The original wallpaper was a dark green in colour and located in 'Archduke John's bedroom' in Killerton.
Marks and inscriptions
Killerton 1897 by J.A.Acland (on reverse)
Makers and roles
Sarah Angelina Acland (1849 - 1930), photographer