Julia Margaret Cameron blended an unorthodox technique, a profoundly spiritual sensibility, and a Pre-Raphaelite–inflected aesthetic. “I believe in other than mere conventional topographic photography—map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form,” she wrote. While her photographs of men usually portrayed Victorian luminaries, Cameron’s female subjects were most often friends, relatives, or household servants presented in the guise of literary, historical, or biblical figures. Here, Cameron presents her adopted daughter, Cyllena Wilson, as Rosalba, a young bride torn between duty and desire in the play The Virgin Widow by the photographer’s close friend, Sir Henry Taylor.