[Alice Liddell]

Lewis Carroll British
Person in photograph Alice Pleasance Liddell British

Not on view

Eighteen-year-old Alice Liddell’s slumped pose, clasped hands, and sullen expression invite interpretation. A favored model of Lewis Carroll, and the namesake of his novel Alice in Wonderland, Liddell had not seen the writer and photographer for seven years when this picture was made; her mother had abruptly ended all contact in 1863. The young woman poses with apparent unease in this portrait intended to announce her eligibility for marriage. The session closed a long and now controversial history with Carroll, whose portraits of children continue to provoke speculation. In what was to be her last sitting with the photographer, Liddell embodies the passing of childhood innocence that Carroll romanticized through the fictional Alice.

[Alice Liddell], Lewis Carroll (British, Daresbury, Cheshire 1832–1898 Guildford), Albumen silver print from glass negative

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