Published to coincide with an exhibition held at the Photographers Gallery and Foundling Museum in London and touring to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Photography, this book examines contemporary interpretations of one of the most enduring subjects in the history of picture-making: the image of the mother.
Roger Fenton's photograph Pasha and Bayadére is a fascinating image in its own right and is an expression of a more general Orientalist craze that grew steadily stronger during the nineteenth century in Europe. In his rich and detailed study, Baldwin explains how this image of a seated man anda dancing woman embodies themes and motifs that can be found in the work of nineteenth-century artists from Eugéne Delacroix to John Frederick Lewis to Alfred Lord Tennyson. He has also brought to light significant new information about the life and career of Fenton, the important Victorianphotographer best known for his photographs of the Crimean War.