Thérèse de Lisieux at About Fifteen

What it is

This is a black-and-white studio photograph of Thérèse of Lisieux at about fifteen years old, taken around 1888. She is shown seated in profile, wearing a dark high-necked dress, with her hair styled in a high bun.

Why it matters

The photograph dates from around the time Thérèse entered the Carmelite convent at a young age, a major decision that shaped the rest of her short life. Images like this, taken before she became a nun, let us see her as an ordinary teenage girl before she took on the religious identity for which she later became famous.

Look closer

• What does her clothing and pose suggest about the kind of photograph this was meant to be?
• How does this portrait differ from later images of her in a Carmelite habit?
• Why might this photograph have been kept and preserved?