Miss Janey Callander

Miss Janey Callander


An inked inscription on the album page identifies the sitter as 'Miss Janey Callander [later] Lady Archibald Campbell'.

Given the inscription and the context of the album, this is certainly Janey Sevilla Campbell (1846-1923). She was the daughter of the Scottish politician James Henry Callander and his first wife, the Hon Jane Plumer Erskine. She was left an orphan by the age of four by the death of her mother, then her step-mother and finally her father. She thus became the ward of her step-mother's relation George Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll, and grew up at Inveraray Castle. On 12 January 1869 she married the Duke of Arygll's second son Lord Archibald Campbell (1846-1913).

She became a friend of the American artist James McNeill Whistler, who produced three ¾ length portraits of her. She produced several theatrical productions noted for their pastoral values, such as a Romeo and Juliet put on at Cadgwith in Cornwall in summer 1880 starring Helena Modjeska and Johnston Forbes-Robertson. In 1886 she published a book Rainbow Music, or The Philosophy of Harmony in Colour-Grouping, which was much influenced by Whistler's art.

Photographer unidentified.


 


Code: 123676
© Paul Frecker 2024