Historical Indulgences

ca. 1860, [post mortem portrait of a gentleman]

via the Boston Public Library on Flickr, Print Department

ca. 1855, [post mortem daguerreotype portrait of a child of a sofa]

via the Cleveland Museum of Art, Photography Collection

ca. 1845-50, [daguerreotype portrait of a gentleman either deceased or closely approaching death with a hand upon his lap], attributed to Jean Victor

via Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs

ca. 1850’s, [daguerreotype portrait of a sleeping, or possibly deceased, child with toys]

via Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs

ca. 1850, [daguerreotype portrait of Rosaline Holmes Harrison with her deceased child], Jaquith

via the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Batcheler, Hartshorne, and Sahlin families Papers Collection

ca. 1860, [Post mortem portrait of baby girl]

via the Southern Methodist University Libraries, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection

ca. 1867, “The Shirt of the Emperor, Worn during His Execution”, François Aubert

This grisly photograph depicts the bullet-riddled shirt of the Austrian Archduke Maximilian I, who was appointed Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon III in 1864. Maximilian’s puppet regime lasted only three years; when the French army withdrew from Mexico in 1867, he was captured, tried, and executed by the nationalist supporters of Benito Juarez. Aubert, a French photographer working in Mexico, photographed Maximilian’s corpse and clothing, producing a sensational and somewhat gruesome record of the execution and the politically charged relics of the slain emperor.

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photographs Collection

ca. 1850’s, [post-mortem daguerreotype portrait of Benjamin Ward Alford]

via the Virginia Historical Society, Photographs Collection

ca. 1855, [daguerreotype portrait of two children with toys]

via the Cleveland Museum of Art, Photography Collection

ca. 1850’s [post mortem daguerreotype of a woman with a book]

via Live Auctioneers, Be-Hold

ca. 1864-65, [carte de visite of mourners at grave of Gen. T.J. (Stonewall) Jackson. Lexington, VA]

via the Missouri History Museum

ca. 1855, [daguerreotype portrait of a sleeping, possibly deceased, child], Jesse H. Whitehurst

via the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery

ca. 1850’s, [post mortem daguerreotype portrait of a gentleman]

via the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Photography Collection

ca. 1850, [post mortem ambrotype portrait of a child]

via the Cleveland Museum of Art, Photography Collections

ca. 1850’s, [Post mortem daguerreotype portrait of a gentleman]

via the Daguerreian Society, Cindy Motzenbecker Collection