Deathly Looks
If you notice something particularly
odd about the eyes of an ancestor in a photograph – either the eyes being
closed or a vacant expression - consider
that this might be because it was taken after he or she had died!
The
Victorians were fond of post-mortem photographs (an example of ‘momento mori’)
as reminders or memories of the dead. In these pictures, the recently deceased
were often propped up and dressed as if alive. Their eyes might be artificially
held open, or, even more bizarrely, painted in (on the eyelid) after the
photograph was printed.
Long exposure times meant that images of the living
(and moving) were often blurred. So, if the image of one person in a photograph
is unusually clear (whilst those around him are blurred), it’s a possibility
that this is, in fact, a corpse!
Keywords: Europe, European, ancestors, ancestry, genealogy, family history, England
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