Accession Number

2023.003.006

Description

One sepia-toned studio photograph of Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir (1872-1950) seated in an armchair in an elegantly appointed interior. She is wearing a lightly coloured gown comprised of opaque fabric, lace and vertical strips of netting. Her head is tilted to her left and she is touching her left cheek with her left hand. Both arms are resting on the chair. The photograph is mounted on cream-coloured cardstock. The back of the cardstock has a handwritten pencil mark: “93505 B”

Narrative

This photograph depicts Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir, a daughter of Robert and Joan Olive Dunsmuir. It was probably taken not long after her wedding to Reginald Spencer Chaplin, an officer with the 10th Royal Hussars regiment of the British Army. The wedding took place in Dublin, Ireland on June 8, 1898. She appears to be wearing a wedding ring in this photograph. 

“Maud”, as she was known to her friends and family, was the eighth daughter of Robert and Joan Olive Dunsmuir, and she lived in Craigdarroch from 1890 until her marriage in 1898.

History of Use

This photograph was probably created in Ireland and used by Captain Berkeley Holme-Sumner and Margaret Joan Harvey (Mrs. Holme-Sumner) in Britain until the 1950s when it became the property of their daughter, Georgiana Holme-Sumner, and then by Georgiana Holme-Sumner’s son, who donated the photograph to Craigdarroch Castle in 2023. He had been using it at his home in Scotland. Margaret Joan Harvey was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her aunt Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir and Reginald Spencer Chaplin. Their age differed by only 11 months.

Date

circa 1899

Dimensions

35 x 28.2 cm