Anne Wagner album - Public domain dedication image

Turning to the album of an English woman named Anne Wagner, now held in the New York City Public Library, Ordynat’s case study demonstrates how women used albums to contain selected collections of visual images and memories, which were framed in contemporary notions of femininity and gender, and yet possessed their own individual style and approach. Assembling collections within albums brings to light the fragility between public and private. Furthermore, Ordynat demonstrates how the nature of the items Wagner gathered (poetry, collages, tokens of friendship) and the way she displayed her collection, ‘kept with great nicety’, communicate a unique and nuanced aesthetic sensibility.