Clementina Maude, Viscountess Hawarden (née Elphinstone Fleeming; 1 June 1822 – 19 January 1865), commonly known as Lady Clementina Hawarden, was a Scottish amateur portrait photographer of the Victorian era. She produced over 800 photographs mostly of her adolescent daughters.
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Family
Clementina was born in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, on 1 June 1822, the third of five children of Admiral Charles Elphinstone Fleeming (1774–1840), and Catalina Paulina Alessandro (1800–1880).
Her father served in the Colombian war of independence, the Venezuelan war of independence, as well as the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He was a member of parliament for Stirlingshire in 1802, and died when Clementina was age 18.
In 1845, she married Cornwallis Maude, 4th Viscount Hawarden, who was an Irish Conservative politician, and they lived mainly in Ireland; the couple had eight girls and two boys.
Photography
She turned to photography in late 1856 or, probably, in early 1857, whilst living on the family estate in Dundrum, County Tipperary, Ireland. A move to London in 1859 allowed her to set up a studio in her elegant home in South Kensington. There she took many of the characteristic portraits for which she is principally remembered. Many include her adolescent daughters Isabella Grace, Clementina and Florence Elizabeth. The furniture and characteristic decor of an upper-class London home was removed in order to create mise-en-scene images and theatrical poses within the first floor of her home. Hawarden used mirrors to create a 'body double' and natural sunlight to light her shots, which was 'groundbreaking'. She produced her own albumen prints from wet-plate collodion negatives, a method commonly used at the time.