victorian middle class part ii
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Post-mortem photography began in the 19th century, essentially beginning with the invention of the camera, and ended in the 1940s. In a broad sense, it is defined as the act of photographing a deceased person. However, in the Victorian age, it became a fine art that may seem a
bit macabre to modern sensibilities. It was popular to prop the deceased into a position so as to appear alive with the surviving family or friends posing with them in a sort of family photo. The purpose of this was not to be sensational or macabre, but to have something beautiful to remember your lost loved one by. In the context of the mid-19th century, cameras were new technology and photography a brand new art form and was not as easily available to the public as it is today. That is why they posed the dead to appear, at least in the photo, as if they were still alive. In many cases, these photo shoots would be the only photos ever taken of the deceased and only the rich could afford to have a portrait
painted. Photos in general were still not cheap but were affordable to the average person. The elaborate post-mortem photography shown above survived until the end of the Victorian era. However, in the early 1900s it slowly became common to take the photo with the deceased in
their coffin or in their “death bed.” This type of post-mortem photography survived into the 1940s before the practice faded away.
