Lot 102: David Wilkie Wynfield

David Wilkie Wynfield
six costumed studies - john everett millais, thomas oldham barlow, george frederic watts, henry wyndham phillips, charles frederick keene and an unidentified man, 1860s-1870s
Albumen Prints, each mounted on card with coloured border, the majority with labels bearing a photographic facsimile of sitter's signature on the mount below the image, the study of Millais as Dante with 'John Everett Millais R.A.' in pencil and 'John Crompton/Heatherley Studio/79 Newman Street/London W.' in ink on the reverse, the study of Keene with a photographic reproduction of a painting on the reverse, the study of Watts with printed labels 'George Frederick(sic) Watts' on the mount recto and verso, the study of Phillips annotated 'Henry Wyndham Phillips/1820-1868 Portrait Painter;/son of Thos. Phillips R.A.' in pencil on the mount, (6)
212 by 162mm
David Wilkie Wynfield (1837-87),
a member of the St John's Wood Clique of painters, took up photography as an amateur pursuit in the early 1860s. He is best known for his distinctive 'unsharp' portraits of his artist contemporaries in costume of the medieval and Renaissance periods. Julia Margaret Cameron said of Wynfield that 'to my feeling about his beautiful photography I owed all my attempts & indeed consequently all my success.'
Provenance:
Various sources including Daniel Wolf, New York, 1979 (portrait of Millais).
Literature:
Juliet Hacking, Princes of Victorian Bohemia Photographs by David Wilkie Wynfield, London, 2000.