Becoming: The Photographs of Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden

Becoming: The Photographs of Clementina, Viscountess HawardenClementina, Viscountess Hawarden (1822 1865) produced over eight hundred photographs during her all too brief life. Most of these were portraits of her adolescent daughters. By whisking away the furniture and bric a brac common in scenes of upper class homes of the Victorian period, Lady Hawarden transformed the sitting room of her London residence into a photographic studio a private space for taking surprising photos of her daughters in fancy dress.

Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden (1822-1865) produced over eight hundred photographs during her all-too-brief life. Most of these were portraits of her adolescent daughters. By whisking away the furniture and bric-a-brac common in scenes of upper-class homes of the Victorian period, Lady Hawarden transformed the sitting room of her London residence into a photographic studio-a private space for taking surprising photos of her daughters in fancy dress. In Carol Mavor's hands, these pictures become windows into Victorian culture, eroticism, mother-daughter relationships, and intimacy.
With drama, wit, and verve, Lady Hawarden's girls, becoming women, entwine each other, their mirrored reflections and select feminine objects (an Indian traveling cabinet, a Gothic-style desk, a shell-covered box) as homoerotic partners. The resulting mise-en-sc