Spine-tingling photos of dead children from the 19th century reveal the spooky way they were remembered
The eerie pictures reveal how people would have once honoured their dead loved ones – but are pretty unsettling by today’s standards
A GALLERY of haunting photographs show how Victorian families often posed for snaps with their deceased children.
The eerie pictures reveal how people in the 19th century honoured their dead loved ones – and they're pretty unsettling by today’s standards.
In one of the photos, a Victorian mother looks miserable, staring down the camera as she poses with her child.
But her sad expression becomes understandable once viewers realise she is posing for a macabre shot with her dead daughter, who appears to be sitting peacefully on her lap.
The remarkable photographs, from The Thanatos Archive, show the morbid way that the dead were remembered in the late 19th century.
Photographers would try to make the dead subjects appear alive in the images so that the posed photographs could serve as mementos for the deceased’s loved ones.
The invention of the daguerreotype - the earliest photographic process - in 1839 brought portraiture to the masses.
It was far cheaper and quicker than commissioning a painted portrait and it enabled the middle classes to have an affordable, cherished keepsake to remember their dead family members by.
Known as post-mortem photography, some of the dearly departed were even photographed in their coffin.