"Berkeley was born in 1831 to a spectacularly wealthy and powerful family (Berkeley square in London is named after them). Apparently, according to the introduction, little is known about the details of her life – She married in 1877, well after the completion of this album, to Sidney Atherley, who died shortly afterwards. Berkeley lived on until 1919, surviving all of her immediate family members. The images themselves, constructed between 1865 and 1871, when it appears she lost interest in the project, use photographs that seem to have been taken by professional and salon photographers and that Berkeley reappropriated to suit her needs. Often, figures are cut out of their backgrounds and placed on or around animals, but just as frequently the photos are left untouched and instead are surrounded by elaborately painted frames.
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