Pleasures Taken Performances of Sexuality and Loss in Victorian Photographs

Carol Mavor addresses the erotic possibilities of images, exploring not ony the sexualities of the girls, maids and Madonnas, but the pleasures taken - by the viewer, the photographer, the model - in imagining these sexualities.



Lewis Carroll's photographs of young girls, Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs of Madonnas and the photographs of Hannah Cullwick, "maid of all work", pictured in masquerade - Carol Mavor addresses the erotic possibilities of these images, exploring not ony the sexualities of the girls, maids and Madonnas, but the pleasures taken - by the viewer, the photographer, the model - in imagining these sexualities.