Introduction
As with a number of photographs in the
Jane Morris series,
at least three copies of this pose survive, one print in the
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, this copy (which is a print done around 1930), and another also in the Victoria and
Albert Museum's
<hi rend="i">Album of Portraits of
Mrs. William Morris (Jane Burden). Posed by Rossetti,
1865</hi>
.
This picture is one of the most remarkable in the series, especially the two prints
that are preserved in the Victoria and Albert album. Mrs. Morris is
posed outdoors against the backdrop of a billowing canopy, with her hands clasped at
her midriff. She is turned facing the camera, though she looks away to the right.
The other V & A print is cropped down from the original negative, as is the Birmingham copy. This modern print shows the composition of the original negative and is far the more dramatic
and dynamic image, though the cropped version is also interesting and effective, not least
because of certain ghostly internal “framing” effects (these appear
on several other of the pictures in the series). The Birmingham print, which
is a replica of the cropped version, does not display this framing effect.
This pose is very close in style to
another pose also composed outdoors in the
marquee.