A new addition to my collection

I found another gem for my collection recently, it's a postmortem picture of a child from Belgium.

New French Post Mortem

My second birthday present from my parents was a lovely little French Post Mortem Cabinet Card (I chose it) its a small sized card, and I love it, its so delicate and beautiful.

Here I am holding it so you can get an idea of its size, I went through a phase of the bigger the better with the photos I was buying, but I'm getting much more interested in the little ones recently. There's something so fragile and delicate about the small ones that is so beautiful. I have another one this size and they look so lovely together, a good quality image in this size of cabinet card is just unbeatable! 

Here is a scan of the full thing, as I've mentioned it's from France, the child is posed outside judging from the wall behind. He or she has the typical 'death curl' in the hair and the face is just heartbreaking and slightly spooky. This poor child looks so fragile in death, hopefully this photograph brought some comfort to the parents and helped preserve the child's memory.

Birthday Tintypes

I got some lovely little tintypes for my birthday, they came from America, I do adore American Tintypes.
They are all children, two of them feature 'hidden mothers' where a parent had to hide just on the edge of the shot to hold a baby still for the picture, mine just feature an arm and side of head, the best hidden mother pictures have the whole figure draped in black fabric, it looks incredibly spooky.

Here they are in my hand to give an idea of size, they're very small and delicate.

The first one features a baby being held up by its mothers arm, the rest of her being out of shot. I love the way the baby is slumped in the chair in this one, makes it look quite weird. A lot of uneducated people online would say this was a postmortem picture (like they do about any slightly spooky looking photo from this era) but this was in fact a common way of trying to keep a baby still for long exposure times, as were stands with a neck holder for adults, this isn't holding up a corpse but just a way occasionally used to help keep subjects still for long periods.

This next one is beautiful, the detail is so lovely, it features the child's father holding her up with a fabric draped arm, you can see the side of his head in the image, this was originally hidden behind a paper mount.

This third one I thought was just lovely, the child looks so sweet just sat there with a funny face, he or she had done a good job of sitting for the picture as it doesn't look anyone is holding them up.

1920s Fancy Dress

We received a bundle of old photographs recently from a family member on my mums side. My mum is looking into her family history and has been asking around to find more pictures and information. Among the new pictures was an incredible, tiny picture of my Great Aunts school class on a fancy dress day in, I am guessing late 1920s.

I took two pictures of it to show the most interesting costumes, the main standout one is the amazing homemade, slightly weird looking Gollywog. My mum rang my Great Aunt who is now 90 years old to ask her about it and it turns out my Great Aunt is, in fact the child inside the Gollywog costume, she says she hated wearing it, and was really annoyed that she had to! I've seen and collected so many 1920s era fancy dress photographs, mainly from my own family, but until this one none of the subjects still survive, so it was great to hear her first hand account of it. Her parents certainly made some effort making it.

To the left side of the Gollywog is an incredibly weird looking costume, which is very spooky on first glance, as it looks like a faceless child, like some weird slenderman type figure.

A more detailed look and we think it is meant to be a duck outfit, with the winged sleeve and flipper like feet,  but how the child could see is abit of a mystery!

Babies Skulls

Last week I got my fine liners out again, for the first time in a long while, I was inspired by an amazing shop I found in Hay on Wye full of natural history themed antiques, ephemera and artwork.

I decided to try some skull drawings, looking at antique anatomical drawings as inspiration.

I think I will get some little prints of these done.

 

My Doll Collection

I got a new photo editing program and thought i'd photograph some of my favourite dolls from my collection, although I feel bad having favourites! I have hundreds, but here is an overveiw.

I've been collecting since I was a child, I started off with a rag doll my grandmother had made for my mother when she was a child, and I just wanted more. Above is the Ragdoll by my Grandmother, along with Mr Beast made by my Great Aunt Beryl and sent to me when she learnt of my interest in dolls.

Haunted Air

I recieved the most beautiful book yesterday, 'Haunted Air' by Ossian Brown, A collection of Anonymous Hallowe'en photographs, America 1875-1955.

It has a stunning black fabric cover and the photos are reproduced perfectly in their original size.
Its such a stunning book.

"The photographs in Haunted Air provide an extraordinary glimpse into the traditions of this macabre festival from ages past, and form an important document of photographic history. These are the pictures of the dead: family portraits, mementoes of the treasured, now unrecognisable, other. Torn from album pages, sold piecemeal for pennies and scattered, abandoned to melancholy chance and the hands of strangers."
-The Random House Group











I hugely recomment that you buy this treasure of a book

Sleeping Beauty 3

Here is the book I want for Christmas, shame the postage costs more that the book! I hope it gets on Amazon soon so i can get it sent a little cheaper before it goes out of print and cost hundreds, I am lucky enough to have the quite rare 'Sleeping Beauty 2' and I want to add to the collection with this one



heres a couple from the amazing selection of postmortem pictures of children that are included

Let them not weep, let them know that I'm glad to go, Death is no dream, for in death I'm caressing you

Highlights from my Old Photograph collection

I am a collector of Antique and Vintage photographs, I have literally hundreds and hundreds of them, ranging from Victorian to 1950s I mainly focus my collection on Children, but I also have many others, anything that catches my eye really, I thought i'd post here my most prized pictures from my collection, the gems I am so happy to own.

The first picture is a photograph of my Grandfather and his brother dressed for a local fancy dress party, as a clown and a black Minstrel. I adore this picture, the original is very tiny and one of a series including their parents in costume and costumes they wore to other events. As well as my many anonymous pictures, I love having pictures from my family aswell.



This Pair of cabinet Cards are so lovely, I bought them off the internet so I have no idea who they are, or anything about them. To me they appear to be brothers who have been photographed in some epic crochet collers their mother or Grandmother probably lovingly made for them.



This one was bought online from America, I just love the outfit she is wearing and the setting, she seems kind of spooky and strange, I wonder what event she was dressed up for, possibly a bridesmaid.



Here is my Indian boy, A small picture in large frame, which I really like. This little boy was brought back for me from India by a friend who went on holiday there.



This is one of my all time favoutites from my collection, its a Tintype in an amazingly elaborate frame. On the back there is a little information about him, his name is Charles and he is a freed slave, I am so taken with his handsome, jolly face and his wonderful outfit, I found him in an antique shop near Cambridge.



This is my favourite of all the Holy Communion photographs I have, I love her face and her pose, its just a gorgeous photograph, I bought this online from Lisbon.



Another lovley Holy Communion Picture, with a Brother and Sister, I unfortunately can't remember which country this was from, possibly Belgium and it was bought online.



This pictures comes from a Photograph album I bought online from France, its very faded, but I adore it, I love the border and the patterned cloth they are sat on.



This another one from the French Album, a brother and sister, possibly the children of the owners of the album. I love this mainly for their strange clown-like costumes.



Here is another picture of the same girl in the previous photograph, dressed again in her clown style outfit.



This is my first Postmortem photograph, it is particularly sad as she is again the same girl, who appears in the previous two pictures, it is sad to know she didn't make it to adulthood.



My next postmortem photograph shows an unidentified little girl propped on a chair, notice her vacant eyes and dropping jaw, also the cloth behind her on the chair, placed there to soak up any bodily fluids coming out of the dead body. This picture was bought online from America.



This next postmortem picture is one of my best, and one of my most precious photos, its so beautiful, showing the whole coffin surrounded by flowers, again this was bought online from America.





Finally, my absolute favourite picture, which I bought quite recently online from England, although it could possibly be an American image, i'm not sure. This a particularly stunning example of postmortem photography, with the slightly open eyes and sad pose, I like the unusual composition of this picture aswell.