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February 07, 2004

My Latest Morbid Preoccupation.

As anyone who's seen The Others knows, photography was a less-than-common thing in Victorian England, and it wasn't unusual for families to prop up/lay out the bodies of recently deceased relatives to snap their pictures. In a lot of cases, especially those of children and babies, a photograph was the only reminder of them the family would have, or it was the only photograph they ever had taken. The bodies were usually well-dressed and groomed for the photos.

Perfect example. See her? Dead.

I like this particular photo a lot. Partly because of the drop of something coming out of the girl's nostril, marring the image the photographer was going for of a perfectly healthy and very much alive little girl who happens to suffer from acute flashbulb-induced narcolepsy. Partly because the girl looks a lot like my currently very much alive friend Petra.

Hm. I smell a cheesy supernatural suspense thriller plot in there somewhere.

This image, by the way, comes from Sleeping Beauty, one of the very very VERY few books published about Victorian memorial/death photography. You'd be lucky to find a copy these days for less than four hundred dollars, because life is not fair. Fortunately, there's a very reasonably priced sequel. Somethin' for the ol' Amazon Wishlist.

Of course, all of this has only reignited my interest in Victorian psychiatric photography, which probably an even harder itch to scratch. Kind of uncouth to published volumes of the forced portraits of long-dead British madmen these days.

Posted by Spike at February 7, 2004 11:08 PM

Comments

stuff dripping out of her nose=wonderfully creepy. makes you wonder how she died.

Posted by jaclyn at February 8, 2004 12:23 AM
68.230.67.166

also, i wonder what's on her neck....

Posted by jaclyn at February 8, 2004 12:24 AM
68.230.67.166

Blame me all you like baby, you know you're just as morbid as I am.

Posted by Lisa Jonte at February 8, 2004 11:17 AM
64.85.227.122

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Wanna see my photos of the cast of Chang and Eng's conjoined liver?

Posted by spike at February 9, 2004 12:27 AM
68.20.23.156

Ew. No.

Posted by Lisa Jonté at February 9, 2004 12:35 AM
64.85.227.122

I've always wondered about those pictures. Do they prop them up in a chair with a stick, or do they take the pics of them lying on the bed? Enquiring minds want to know...

Posted by London at February 9, 2004 04:12 PM
152.163.252.198

They're just sort of sat upright, as far as I can tell. Sometimes. In the case of kids (and sometimes wives), the families loved to lay them out in bed surrounded by flowers and such.

And Lisa, I THOUGHT YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND. ;________________;

Posted by spike at February 9, 2004 04:20 PM
68.20.23.156

I caught a show on the Mutter Museum's collection of abnormally developed fetuses while channel surfing today, and thought of you, Spike.

Shame you don't get the Pennsylvania Cable Network in Chicago.

Posted by Rich at February 9, 2004 04:34 PM
141.151.58.199

Holy Crap! She does look like me! Especially when I was a child.

Posted by Petra at February 9, 2004 11:06 PM
67.39.176.116

eh a kid died with whom can photography on the chair??? that frightens me but in general rests on the bed and I respect you
here French

Posted by regis at April 1, 2005 10:31 AM
83.194.1.99

why are ya'll making funny of a dead little girl. ya'll are stupid as hell, but how did she died anyway

Posted by jessica lewis at July 26, 2005 05:46 AM
204.52.242.50

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