Taken from life: Post-mortem portraiture in Britain 1860–1910

Only a tiny minority of the family photograph collections assembled in Britain between 1860 and 1910 includes post-mortem portraits. These could have been acquired through private commission by relatives of the deceased or purchased as part of the retail trade in commercial portraits of celebrities. The very small number of articles devoted to the subject in the photographic press confirms that photographers consciously attempted to portray the dead as if sleeping. Surviving photographs reveal how this intention influenced all aspects of the portrait, including the treatment of the face, the pose and lighting of the body, and the choice of background and accessories. The motives behind the acquisition of posthumous portraits remain more obscure: some can be ascertained from entries in diaries and correspondence; others can be inferred through reference to contemporary attitudes towards death and the rituals observed by the bereaved. By suppressing evidence of the unpleasant aspects of death and by suggesting a more familiar state of being, post-mortem portraits were intended to ease the pain of loss and bring solace and comfort to the bereaved.