V. C. PRINSEP, A.R.A.

V. C. PRINSEP, A.R.A.

Studio portrait of Val Prinsep

1884

Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London publisher

D. Appleton & Co., New York publisher

V. C. Prinsep, ARA, albumen print, approx. 6½ x 8½ in., by Joseph Park Mayall (1839-1922), 1883

F. G. Stephens, Artists at Home, photographed by J. P. Mayall and reproduced in facsimile by photoengraving on copper plates; edited, with biographical notes and descriptions, by Frederick George Stephens (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington; New York: Appleton & Co., 1884), n.p.

Prinsep, Valentine Cameron (1838-1904), English painter

March 1884

Photograph copyrighted September 14, 1883. Copyright owner of photograph, Joe Parkin Mayall, 548 Oxford Street, London. Copyright author of photograph, Frank Dudman, 27 Bloemfontein, Shepherds Bush, London (Public Records, National Archives, Kew, COPY 1/365/285).

Copyright description: "Photograph of Mr V Prinsep A R A and interior of his studio at 1 Holland Park Road, Kensington. Seated, palette in hand."

The artist seated in a wooden chair holding a palette and paintbrushes with his head tilted towards his left shoulder.

“Reviews: ‘Artists at Home.’” The Derby Mercury (Derby, England), issue 8828, March 26, 1884. "The four plates in the part (No. 1) now before us represent Sir Frederic Leighton, Mr. W. C. Marshall, Mr. T. Webster, and Mr. V. C. Prinsep, in their workrooms, and in their habits as they live there. The portraits of the artists are admirable as likenesses, and the details of the studios themselves are admirably brought out. . . . The biographies are from the highly competent pen of Mr. F.G. Stephens, who supplies a variety of interesting particulars, especially in regard to the works and studies of the artists treated. Thus, of Mr. Prinsep’s house and work-room Mr. Stephens says . . . ."

“Art in September.” The Magazine of Art 7 (September 1884): xlviii. "Mr. Mayall’s photographs—or rather, the photo-engravings on copper plates reproduced therefrom—are singularly lifeless and dull. Everybody looks as though he were sitting for his portrait; the very furniture is posing; and over all is that terrible and tremendous presence, the photographer’s light, “the light that never was on sea or land.” Mr. Calderon affronts the camera with much sternness; Sir John Gilbert has the sun in his eyes, and comes out very white and vague; Mr. Boehm, sitting desultorily among busts and statues, seems to have been caught in the act of reading the paper; while Mr. Alma Tadema, as unlike himself as possible, leans boldly and airily on the chimney-piece, and Mr. Frank Dicksee, austere yet frightened, does even as Mr. Alma Tadema, and Mr. Val Prinsep turns from his picture with a frown, as if he felt inclined to wring the photographer’s neck."

Valentine, Helen, ed. Art in the Age of Queen Victoria: Treasures from the Royal Academy of Arts Permanent Collection. London: Royal Academy of Arts, in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999. Repr. p. 156

MacLeod, Dianne Sachko. Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996. p. 297, repr. plate 57.

Oxford Art Online, s.v. "Prinsep, Valentine Cameron," Benezit Dictionary of Artists, repr.

Walkley, Giles. Artists’ Houses in London 1764–1914. Aldershot, Hants, England; Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press, 1994. Repr. p. 53.

Val C. Prinsep, Portrait of a Woman with Dark Hair, 1884, oil on canvas

Val C. Prinsep, The Little Bookworm, 1884, oil on canvas

The online edition of this work in the public domain, i.e., not protected by copyright, has been produced by the Emory University Digital Library Program.

FOLIO2011_134_002.tif

Stuart A. Rose Manuscripts and Rare Books Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA

Omeka record contributed by Jenifer Norwalk

September 28, 2016

November 19, 2016
November 21, 2016, by LM
January 20, 2017, by LM

Photoengraving on copper

8.6 in x 6.5 in (21.84 cm x 16.5 cm)

14.5 in. x 11.25 in. (36.83 cm x 28.58 cm)

(Printed on the mount beneath the image) J P Mayall Photo | London published by Sampson Low Marston Searle & Rivington 188 Fleet St. | Park Lane Studio London | JENIFER: Please complete inscription