Lillies ~ 1869
An albumen print photograph of a woman and child holding a bunch of lilies, entitled ‘Lilies’, taken by Julia Margaret Cameron. This photograph is one of a series of photographs taken by Cameron of her maid Mary Hillier (1847-1936) and Elizabeth Keown (b. 1859). The photograph possibly depicts the Biblical story of the Annunciation – when the Virgin Mary discovered she would conceive the child of God, the lily often appears in depictions of the Annunciation, symbolising Mary’s purity. Hillier was Cameron’s maid from 1861 to 1875, and the model for many of Cameron’s photographs.
