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The Royal Collection contains a significant body of work by women photographers

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79)

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) May 1865

RCIN 2941863

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Cameron first met Alfred Tennyson in London, at the literary salon of her sister Sarah Prinsep. From 1860 she became Tennyson’s neighbour on the Isle of Wight. After much pleading, Cameron was permitted to take this photograph of the poet. Tennyson named this image The Dirty Monk and preferred it to almost any other image of him.