Untitled (Ceylon)

Julia Margaret Cameron gained renown for documenting "famous men and fair women" of her day, producing portraits and allegorical groups that were widely admired for their intimacy and emotional depth. In 1875, straitened financial circumstances forced her from her comfortable home on the Isle of Wight, where she was close to many luminaries of Victorian England to the family's coffee plantation in Ceylon. Cameron became enthralled with what she called "the primitive simplicity of the inhabitants," although she concentrated on only a few models—the Tamil women posing here were most likely maidservants working on her plantation. Beset by technical difficulties resulting from the warm and humid climate, and deprived of the audience she had had in England, Cameron produced but few photographs in these final years in Ceylon.