Marble bust of Julia Sabina, wife of Adrian

The marble bust depicts Julia Sabina in a classical pose, emphasizing the idealized features typical of Roman portraiture. As a representation of a private individual, the work offers insight into the personal commemorative practices of the period, while its photographic copy extends the visual record of such sculptural forms beyond the museum’s physical holdings.

Laffon employed the wet collodion process, the dominant photographic method of the 1860s, to capture the three‑dimensional qualities of the marble surface. The resulting image balances sharp detail with a subtle tonal range, rendering the stone’s texture and the bust’s contours in a manner that serves both documentary and instructional purposes.

The photograph entered the museum’s collection shortly after its creation, when the V&A purchased 500 works from Laffon’s series of the Campana Collection through the agent Monsieur E. Cappe in 1864. Originally part of the National Art Library’s holdings, the print was intended for use by scholars, students, and museum staff.

Louise Laffon, the third woman admitted to the Société Française de la Photographie, contributed to the V&A’s early strategy of using photography to broaden access to artworks. Her work, alongside that of other female photographers such as Isabel Agnes Cowper, supported the museum’s educational mission by providing reproducible visual resources before the advent of modern imaging technologies.