Lot 32: David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson (David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) & Robert Adamson (1821-1848)) , A Reverie . Miss Elizabeth Rigby, (later Lady Eastlake), 1844 or 1845

Calotype. Framed.

measurements note 20.2 x 14 cm (8 x 5½ in.)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Bruce, D. 1973 p. 147 shows a variant image.

Lady Eastlake (1809 -1893), wife of the great arts administrator Sir Charles Eastlake, became a prolific journalist and noted writer on art. Her review of Jane Eyre and of Vanity Fair in the Quarterly Review of October 1848 made some famously sharp judgements about each book. While it was common for Hill and Adamson to ask subjects to pose seated in order to achieve the necessary stillness, it is possible that with Miss Rigby they had another motive. She was, at 5 feet 11 inches, a notably tall woman, and was known in later life as Lago Maggiore.