Post-Mortem on Pillow
Unknown Artist
c. 1855
Medium
ambrotype, tinted, sixth plate
Dimensions
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Classification
Photograph
Department
Photography
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro
Accession Number
2003.294
About this artwork
Children have always been particularly cherished subjects for photography. Portraits were made to preserve the memory of their stages of growth and, in an age when long-distance travel was rare, to share with faraway relatives. And, for a sadder reason: in 1840 an estimated one-third of children died before age five. Photography offered grieving parents the opportunity to immortalize their children’s features. This tragic genre of photographs, later called “post-mortems,” often depicts the child...