Clementina Maude, Viscountess Hawarden (née Elphinstone Fleeming; 1 June 1822 – 19 January 1865), commonly known as Lady Clementina Hawarden, was a Scottish amateur portrait photographer of the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...
. She produced over 800 photographs mostly of her adolescent daughters.
Family
Clementina was born in
Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld (; ) is a large town in the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, most-populous locality in Scotl ...
, North Lanarkshire, on 1 June 1822, the third of five children of Admiral
Charles Elphinstone Fleeming
Charles Elphinstone Fleeming (18 June 1774 – 30 October 1840) was a British admiral of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He commanded a succession of smaller vessels during the early years of t ...
(1774–1840), and Catalina Paulina Alessandro (1800–1880).
Her father served in the Colombian war of independence, the
Venezuelan war of independence
The Venezuelan War of Independence (, 1810–1823) was one of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early nineteenth century, when independence movements in South America fought a civil war for secession and against unity of the S ...
, as well as the
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society.
Definition
The term—bot ...
and
Napoleonic
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of mi ...
wars. He was a
member of parliament for
Stirlingshire
Stirlingshire or the County of Stirling ( ) is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county of Scotland. Its county town is Stirling.Registers of Scotland. Publications, leaflets, Land Register Counties.
It borders Perthshir ...
in 1802, and died when Clementina was age 18.
In 1845, she married
Cornwallis Maude, 4th Viscount Hawarden, who was an Irish Conservative politician, and they lived mainly in Ireland;
the couple had eight girls and two boys.
Photography

She turned to photography in late 1856 or, probably, in early 1857, whilst living on the family estate in
Dundrum, County Tipperary
Dundrum () is a village in County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the 2016 census of Ireland, 2016 census, the population was 165. It is in the Barony (Ireland), barony of Kilnamanagh Lower.
Location and access
Dundrum village lie ...
, Ireland. A move to London in 1859 allowed her to set up a studio in her elegant home in
South Kensington
South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...
. There she took many of the characteristic portraits for which she is principally remembered. Many include her adolescent daughters Isabella Grace, Clementina and Florence Elizabeth. The furniture and characteristic decor of an upper-class London home was removed in order to create
mise-en-scene images and theatrical poses within the first floor of her home.
Hawarden used mirrors to create a 'body double' and natural sunlight to light her shots, which was 'groundbreaking'.
She produced her own
albumen print
Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens, it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms aro ...
s from wet-plate
collodion
Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of nitrocellulose in Diethyl ether, ether and Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol. There are two basic types: flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings ...
negatives, a method commonly used at the time.
[Victoria and Albert Museum. (2015).]
Lady Clementina Hawarden: Working Methods
" Retrieved 14 March 2015.
The Viscountess Hawarden first exhibited in the annual exhibition of the
Photographic Society of London
The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...
in January 1863 and was elected a member of the Society the following March. Her work was acclaimed for its artistic excellence, winning her the silver medal for composition at the exhibition.
She then died of pneumonia before formally collecting it. She was aged 42.
Works and legacy
At a Grand Fête and Bazaar held to raise funds for a new building for the
Royal Female School of Art
The Royal Female School of Art was a professional British institution for the training of women in art and design. It was founded in London in 1842, as part of the Government School of Design, predecessor of the Royal College of Art. It was mer ...
she set up a booth where she photographed guests, the only known occasion on which she took photographs in public.
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...
, an admirer of her work, brought two children to be photographed at this booth, and purchased the resulting prints.
[Leggatt, Robert.]
A History of Photography
.
Her work is often likened or 'compared favourably' to fellow aristocratic photographer
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron (; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was an English photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her Soft focus, soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian era, ...
, although their aesthetics differ widely, as Cameron put less of an emphasis on composition, backgrounds or props.
Her photographic years were brief but prolific. Hawarden produced over eight hundred photographs between 1857 and her sudden death in 1864. Lady Hawarden's photographic focus remained on her children. There is only one photograph believed to feature the Viscountess herself, yet it could also be a portrait of her sister Anne Bontine.
A collection of 775 portraits were donated to the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
, London in 1939 by Hawarden's granddaughter Clementina Tottenham. The photographs were torn or cut from family albums. This accounts for the torn and trimmed corners which are now considered a hallmark of Hawarden's work.
It also indicates that the images were produced for family pleasure, not for commercial gain, which would have been considered inappropriate for 'an elite lady'.
Carol Mavor
Carol Jane Mavor is an American writer and professor. Her work includes the books ''Pleasures Taken: Performances of Sexuality and Loss in Victorian Photographs'', ''Becoming: The Photographs of Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden'', and ''Blue Mytho ...
writes extensively about the place of Hawarden's work in the history of Victorian photography. She states "Hawarden's pictures raise significant issues of gender, motherhood, and sexuality as they relate to photography's inherent attachments to loss, duplication and replication, illusion, fetish."
[
]
Gallery
File:Hawarden-clem-maude-flo-1863-4.jpg, Hawarden-clem-maude-flo-1863-4
File:Clementina Hawarden, Clementina Maude.jpg, Clementina Hawarden, Clementina Maude
File:Hawarden-clementina-maude-1862-3-mirror.jpg, Hawarden-clementina-maude-1862-3-mirror
File:Hawarden1.jpg, Hawarden1
File:Clementina Hawarden, Clementina Maude and Isabella, 1861.jpg, Clementina Hawarden, Clementina Maude and Isabella, 1861
File:Lady Clementina Hawarden3.jpg, Lady Clementina Hawarden3
Notes
References
Further reading
* Virginia Dodier. ''Clementina, Lady Hawarden: studies from life, 1857–1864.'' New York: Aperture, 1999. .
* Graham Ovenden (editor). ''Clementina Lady Hawarden,'' 1974 .
* John Hannavy. ''Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Photography'' (CRC Press, 2008, )
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawarden, Clementina Maude, Viscountess
1822 births
1865 deaths
Irish viscountesses
English women photographers
19th-century British women artists
19th-century British photographers
19th-century British women photographers
Photographers from London
Pioneers of photography
Women of the Victorian era