Rejlander, Darwin, and the evolution of ‘Ginx's Baby’

Abstract

‘In spring-time’, Oscar Rejlander wrote in November of 1871 , ‘one might get up such scenes with the chance of taking it photographically, instantaneously, but not now — not now ... You ask more than I can do — at this time of the year — at least’1 This was the second time Rejlander had written to the scientist Charles Darwin to discuss his commission for photographs to illustrate Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) . To support his arguments about the physiology of facial expressions, Darwin had asked Rejlander to produce photographs depicting people in various emotional states. Foremost among these was an illustration of a crying child, an infant uttering ‘violent and prolonged screams’,² as Darwin described it, caught photographically at the height of agitation. It would have to be truly instantaneous: a photograph rendered so rapidly that the subtleties of the child's muscle movements were captured for analysis and study. Rejlander knew such a photograph would be difficult to produce. The technical limitations of collodion photography necessitated exposures in tens, not tenths, of seconds. The dim, raking light of an English winter compounded the problem, as exposures would have to be lengthened to compensate for low natural light levels. Yet when spring arrived in 1872, Rejlander delivered the photographs Darwin requested, including the difficult crying baby image (figure 1). Dubbed ‘Ginx's Baby’ by critics, that image became one of the most widely distributed original photographs of the Victorian Era.

Unpublished correspondence, O. Rejlander to C. Darwin, 11 November 1871, Darwin Manuscripts Collection, Cambridge University Libraries, volume 176 item 116.

Unpublished correspondence, O. Rejlander to C. Darwin, 11 November 1871, Darwin Manuscripts Collection, Cambridge University Libraries, volume 176 item 116.

Notes

Unpublished correspondence, O. Rejlander to C. Darwin, 11 November 1871, Darwin Manuscripts Collection, Cambridge University Libraries, volume 176 item 116.