Page 68 - Expanded Media & the MediaPlex

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To my mind there is a special genius in Nadar’s series of portraits of the young actress Sarah
Bernhardt. With the simplest of props and costumes - a sculptor’s plinth and a draped heavy curtain,
he captures the essence of Bernhardt’s beauty. It is as if Nadar could look ahead to her bright shining
career as the World’s favourite actress - famous all around the world - and knew he was photographing
a star. Coincidentally this was made the same year that Julia Margaret Cameron made an image of
Bernhardt’s exact contemporary, a young actress of 16 years old called Ellen Terry, who was to be
(almost) as famous as Bernhardt.