Memorial Portrait of Prince Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz (1652-1653), Oil on Canvas, 1653

Memorial portrait of Prince Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz (1652-1653) The portrait shows the seven moths old second-born Prince Maurice after his death. Oil on canvas, circa 1653.

Via Museum Schloss Moritzburg Zeitz; you can find out more here.

Unton Memorial Picture, Oil on Panel, Unknown Artist, c.1596.

The Unton Memorial Picture, oil on panel, by unknown artist, c.1596. Note the wonderful skeleton on his shoulder (click on image to see larger version)!

More on the painting, from the London National Portrait Gallery's website (which houses the peice):

This highly unusual narrative portrait of Unton's life was commissioned as a posthumous commemoration by his widow Dorothy Wroughton, and is recorded in her will (1634). At the heart of the composition is the portrait of Unton, flanked by figures of Fame (top left) and Death (top right), and surrounded by scenes from his life and death. These are (anti-clockwise, starting in the bottom right hand corner): 1. As an infant in the arms of his mother, Anne Seymour, formerly Countess of Warwick, at the Unton house of Ascott-under-Wychwood. 2. Studying at Oriel College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1573. 3. Travelling beyond the Alps to Venice and Padua (1570s). 4. Serving with Leicester in the Netherlands (1585-6), with Nijmegen in the distance. 5. On his embassy to Henry IV at Coucy La Fère in northwest France, in an unsuccessful attempt to avert a peace treaty between France and Spain (1595-6). 6 On his deathbed, with a physician sent by Henry IV. 7. His body brought back to England across the Channel in a black ship. 8. His hearse on its way back to his home at Wadley House, Faringdon, near Oxford. 9. (centre right) Unton's life at Wadley House, with scenes showing him sitting in his study (top), talking with learned divines (bottom left), making music (above left), and presiding over a banquet, while a masque of Mercury and Diana is performed, accompanied by musicians. From the house his funeral procession leads, past a group of the poor and lame lamenting his death, to : 10. (left) Faringdon Church with this funeral (8 July 1596) in progress, and, in the foreground, his monument with Unton's recumbent effigy and the kneeling figure of his widow. More detailed information about this portrait to be found at www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/making-art-in-tudor-britain/case-studies/the-portrait-of-sir-henry-unton-c.-1558-1596.php.

Morbid Anatomies! Max Raabe! Amazing Collections! Victorian Machines! The Green Fairy! Post-Mortem Photography! Announcing Season Two of The Midnight Archive.

A new season of The Midnight Archive--that wonderful web-based documentary series centered around Brooklyn's Observatory--will be launching shortly, and series creator Ronni Thomas has just posted an exciting new teaser to give you a taste of what is to come, which, as you will see, will include featurettes on yours truly, the amazing Weimar-revivalist/performance artist Max Raabe, the time-traveling collection of Evan Michelson, the Victorian machines of Tim Mullen, Stanley Burns and his collection of Post-Mortem photography, and the green fairy herself, absinthe!

You can view the excellent teaser by clicking "play" above.

And here is what series creator Thomas has to say about this upcoming season:

Coming up shortly - after a brief hiatus the Midnight Archive web series is on its way back complete with all new things to make your eyes bulge. This season shifts focus to some prolific collections and their owners including our gal Joanna Ebenstein (Morbid Anatomy/Brooklyn Observatory) and the elegant and charming Evan Michelson (owner of Obscura Antiques in NYC) - but we also sprinkle in a decent dose of the old who/what/where/why's of the obscure. We're excited to get it underway and always excited to hear your feedback - prepare for a great stretch! 

For more on the series, to see any of the episodes, or to sign up for the mailing list and thus be alerted to future uploads, visit The Midnight Archive website by clicking here. You can also "like" it on Facebook--and be alerted in this way--by clicking here.

Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive, Monday December 5th, Observatory

Tomorrow night at Observatory! Be sure to arrive early, as this one is sure to sell out! Above are a few more of the hundreds of images that will be discussed.

Full details follow; hope to see you there!

Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive
Illustrated Lecture and book signing with Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS of the Burns Collection and Archive
Date: Monday, December 5th
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Books will be available for sale and signing; see bottom of this page for complete list of books available

Postmortem photography, photographing a deceased person, was a common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These photographs, from the beginning of the practice until now, are special mementos that hold deep meaning for mourners through visually "embalming" the dead. Although postmortem photographs make up the largest group of nineteenth-century American genre photographs, until recent years they were largely unseen and unknown. Dr. Burns recognized the importance of this phenomenon in his early collecting when he bought his first postmortem photographs in 1976. Since that time he has amassed the most comprehensive collection of postmortem photography in the world and has curated several exhibits and published three books on the subject: the Sleeping Beauty series. Tonight, Dr. Burns will speak about the practice of postmortem photography from the 19th century until today and share hundreds of images from his collection.

About Sleeping Beauty: Dr. Burns’ first book on postmortem photography, Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America (1990) has been widely recognized as one of the most important photography books of all time. Sleeping Beauty has influenced an eclectic array of fields, from bereavement counseling and education to cultural anthropology, history, medicine, philosophy, religion and spirituality (not to mention pop music) and has been cited in debates on the death penalty, euthanasia and abortion. It has been the subject of numerous scholarly papers as well as seminars and exhibitions at notable institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New Museum of Contemporary Art. A decade later the Archive published Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography American & European Traditions in conjunction with an exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay. Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children, the third installment in this series was released this year to accompany a traveling exhibition.

About the Burns Collection and Archive: The Burns Collection, founded in 1975 hosts the nation's largest collection of early medical photography and has been generally recognized as one the most important private comprehensive collections of early photography (over one million photographs). The Collection is best known for images of the dark side of life: death, disease, disaster, mayhem, crime, racism, revolution, riots and war. Dr. Burns has authored forty-three photo-historical texts and curated more than fifty photographic exhibitions. He is a founding donor of several museum photography collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum and The Bronx Museum of the Arts. In addition to being an internationally distinguished author, curator, historian, collector, publisher, and archivist, Dr. Burns is a New York City ophthalmologist and Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center. The Burns Archive produces publications, exhibitions, and manages image licensing for the Burns Collection. To find out more, you can visit the Burns Archive Blog, website, or press website.

These Burns Archive titles will be available for sale and signing:
Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children $36
Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography... $85
Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography by R.B. Bontecou $50
News Art: Manipulated Photographs from the Burns Archive $50
Deadly Intent, Crime & Punishment: Photographs from the Burns Archive $75
Seeing Insanity: Photography & The Depiction of Mental Illness $40

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here. Directions to Observatory can be found here.

“Memento Mori: The Birth and Resurrection of Postmortem Photography,” Merchant's House Museum with the Burns Archive, New York, Through November 29th

The New York Times blog just ran a brief story on a new exhibit I have been dying (sic) to see: “Memento Mori: The Birth and Resurrection of Postmortem Photography,” an exhibition exploring memorial photography then and now, curated in a collaboration between Eva Ulz and the incomparable Burns Archive of New York.

The exhibition--on view at the Merchant's House Museum in lower Manhattan until November 29th--features a collection of antique memorial photography drawn from the incredible Burns Archive curated alongside similarly-themed photographs by contemporary artists such as Joel-Peter Witkin, Sally Mann, Hal Hirshorn, Marian St. Laurent and Sarah Lohman. This intriguing looking exhibition takes as its theme the role of post-mortem photographs at different cultural moments.

As the article explains:

“People dealt with death differently in the 19th century,” says Eva Ulz, the curator of “Memento Mori: The Birth and Resurrection of Postmortem Photography” at the Merchant’s House Museum. “People looked forward to a reunion in heaven. Creating portraits was considered a precursor to that heavenly reunion. They shouldn’t be thought of as creepy.”

As much as it is about religious belief, the show — which was organized in conjunction with the Burns Archive and includes some 145 postmortem images and ephemera taken between the 1840s and the early 1900s — takes as its main subject the role of photography in everyday life, then and now. As the 20th century began to unfold and photography became much more common, Ulz says, postmortem images were sapped of their ritualistic importance.

To help put that shift in context, Ulz asked five contemporary shooters, including Sally Mann, Joel-Peter Witkin, Hal Shirshorn and Sarah Lohman, to contribute their own take on the postmortem photograph. The photographer Marian St. Laurent, who created an actual coffin called “Our Darling: A Memorial of Photography,” sees the exhibit as “a remembrance of photo negatives in the digital age. As we push the limits of advanced seeing in technology, we’ve never been more blind to the power of images.”

Ulz hopes “Momento Mori” will create in viewers a deeper understanding of their relationship with photography today. “I hope they get an idea of where they and their images fit in the cycle of life,” she says. “If you had to choose, which one picture would you want to represent you for all eternity?”

The show--which celebrates the publication of the Burns Archives’ latest book Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children--is on view at the Merchant's House Museum until November 29; you can find out more about the exhibition by clicking here. You can find out more about the new book Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children--which joins its predecessors Sleeping Beauty I and II--by clicking here. To find out more about The Burns Archive, click here; to check out its new and wonderful blog, click here. You can read this NY Times Blog post in its entirety by clicking here.

Thanks to Jim Edmonson of the Dittrick Museum for drawing my attention to this article!

All images from Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography the Children/Stanley B. Burns, MD, as found on the article website.

New Morbid Anatomy Library Acquisition "Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America" by Jay Ruby

I just received the impatiently-awaited copy of Jay Ruby's Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America, which, in an uncharacteristically lucky moment, I won in a drawing from "The Thanatos Archive," a members-only website devoted to post-mortem and memorial photography. This book--a scholarly, lavishly illustrated work on death and photography in America--is out-of-print and quite dear to come by. Thanks so much to the wonderful Thanatos Archive for making it possible for me to add such an important and difficult-to-acquire book to the Morbid Anatomy Library special collections!

More on the book, from Amazon.com:

Death and the way society comes to terms with it have become a major area of scholarly and popular interest, as evidenced in the work of such well-known figures as Philippe Ariès and Elisabeth Kübler Ross. Photographs and other forms of pictorial imagery play an important role in these investigations. Secure the Shadow is an original contribution that lies at the intersection of cultural anthropology and visual analysis, a field that Jay Ruby's previous writings have helped to define. It explores the photographic representation of death in the United States from 1840 to the present, focusing on the ways in which people have taken and used photographs of deceased loved ones and their funerals to mitigate the finality of death.

Sometimes thought to be a bizarre Victorian custom, photographing corpses has been and continues to be an important, if not recognized, occurrence in American life. It is a photographic activity, like the erotica produced in middle-class homes by married couples, that many privately practice but seldom circulate outside the trusted circle of close friends and relatives. Along with tombstones, funeral cards, and other images of death, these photographs represent one way in which Americans have attempted to secure their shadows.

Ruby employs newspaper accounts, advertisements, letters, photographers' account books, interviews, and other material to determine why and how photography and death became intertwined in the nineteenth century. He traces this century's struggle between America's public denial of death and a deeply felt private need to use pictures of those we love to mourn their loss. Americans take and use photographs of dead relatives and friends in spite of and not because of society's expectation about the propriety of these means. Ruby compares photographs and other pictorial media of death, founding his interpretations on the discovery of patterns in the appearance of the images and a reconstruction of the conditions of their production and utilization.

A selection of Jay Ruby's photographs from Secure the Shadow are available at the Fixing Shadows website; you can see them by clicking here. You can find out more about The Thanatos Archive by clicking here. More about Secure the Shadow here. Feel free to come by and visit this fine book, and others like it, at The Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn, open most days from 10-6 PM.

Post-Mortem and Memorial Photography on Metafilter and Beyond

I just stumbled upon a delightful post on the topic of Memorial Photography on Metafilter. The post links to several websites, my favorite of which is the Flickr collection of "Jack Mord," the man behind The Thanatos Archive, which, by an odd coincidence, I just became a member of yesterday on the recommendation of John Troyer of Death Reference Desk; so far, it seems well-worth the $25 yearly fee. The Thanatos Archive, in the words of the homepage, is a repository for "an extensive collection of vintage post mortem and mourning photos dating back to the mid-1800s" while also being an online-community for collectors and enthusiasts. Highly recommended.

Click here to visit the Metafilter post. Bottom four images from from Jack Mord's Flickr set, which you can visit by clicking here. Top image from The Thanatos Archive, which you can preview and join by clicking here.

For more on this topic, see these previous posts: 1, 2, 3.

Post-Mortem Photograph of a Young Girl, 19th C

Via the wonderful Anonymous Works.

"La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death)" Joaquin Bolaños, 18th C

A few weeks ago, Salvador Olguin gave a wonderful presentation at Observatory. The lecture, entitled "'Cuerpo Presente': Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico..." covered an incredibly broad swath of Mexican cultural history, focusing on cultural attitudes towards death from the times of the Aztecs to the present. Topics covered included Aztec religion and ritual, José Posada's calavera woodcuts, Spanish missionaries, Day of the Dead, rural Mexican post-mortem photography of the 1940s and '50s, and the contemporary Mexican cult of the dead, now an official state-sanctioned religion. This lecture will, someday soon (I promise!) be available in streaming video form on the Observatory website; stay tuned for more on that.

One of the most interesting things Olguin touched on in his lecture was a book I had never heard of: the fantastically illustrated (see above) La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death). This book--a kind of whimsical and irreverent life history of Death in the form of a woman--was published in Mexico in the 18th Century and was, as he explains, highly influential in Mexican culture. I asked Salvador if he would be willing to write a guest post about this fascinating book for Morbid Anatomy; following is his contribution:

The Astounding Life of Death
La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death) is an 18th Century Mexican book written by Joaquin Bolaños. In it, Bolaños recounts the many adventures of Death, from her beginnings in the Garden of Eden, where she is said to have been born from Adam’s Sin (Death’s father) and Eve’s Guilt (her mother; see image 1 above), to her dramatic destruction in Judgment Day (image 8), with copious quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers to back up his facts. The protagonist of the story is referred to as “The Empress of the Sepulchers, The Avenger, and The Very Lady of All Humanity”. Muerte (death) is a female noun in Spanish; this fact allows Bolaños to create a female heroine, a very peculiar one.

Bolaños develops his central character thoroughly, in a lively and humoristic way, reflecting–and contributing to shape–the ambiguous relationship that Mexican culture has with death, marked by eroticism, morbid attraction, sadness and joy. Bolaños’s Death is irreverent, passionate and adventurous, and the book is a very early example of an American character-based novel, with a tongue-in-cheek tone and not lacking social criticism. It was criticized by Mexico’s Colonial literary critics as a piece of bad taste; nevertheless, it has been reevaluated by later scholars as a remarkable testimony of its time.

In the book –which is considered by many scholars to be one of the first Mexican novels–Death suffers, she falls in love, gets married several times (though her marriages were never consummated, as her husbands--all doctors--died upon entering the nuptial bed), and becomes angry when men forget about her continuous presence. The 1792 edition was accompanied by a series of illustrations (shown above) that depict Death in her early days, walking beside her grandmother (image 2)–whose name, according to Bolaños’s quotes from the Bible, is Concupiscence–, getting married (image 6)–while the Devil serves as the minister.

I gladly share some of these illustrations with the readers of this blog.

Thanks so much to Salvador for his wonderful lecture, this excellent post, and for introducing us to such a fascinating moment in Mexican cultural history. If you would like to find out more about Salvador's lecture, you can click here; you can also visit Salvador's blog--"Una Liebre"--by clicking here, and can email him with directly with any questions at salvador.olguin@gmail.com. To find out more about Observatory, click here; if you'd like to get on the Observatory mailing list, please click here.

All images from the 1792 edition of La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte, care of Salvador Olguin; I urge you to click on thme to see larger, more detailed versions. Well worth the time!

Tomororrow Night at Observatory: "'Cuerpo Presente': Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico"

Just a friendly reminder: tomorrow night Salvador Olguin will present a lecture entitled "'Cuerpo Presente': Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico, Featuring a Collection of Postmortem Photographs from Rural Mexico" at Observatory. Complete information following, for your convenience. Hope to see you there!

Tomorrow Night, Friday June 26th
Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory:
'Cuerpo Presente': Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico, Featuring a Collection of Postmortem Photographs from Rural Mexico
Presented by Salvador Olguin
7:30 PM
Free

This illustrated lecture will present a series of postmortem photographs taken between the 1930’s and the 1950’s, when the tradition of celebrating a person’s departure with a last picture was very much alive in small towns and villages in Mexico. A brief journey through some of Mexico’s cultural and artistic ways of celebrating death will provide the frame and background for a better understanding of these images.

Presenter Salvador Olguin holds a MA in Humanistic Studies, and is currently performing research on the subject of the body and its representations at New York University. He is primarily interested in studying cultural artifacts that depict the body in non-normative, unusual ways. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico and currently resides in Brooklyn.

For more information, to see recent and upcoming Observatory events, to get on our mailing list, or to email us questions or suggestions, visit observatoryroom.org.

Click on invitation to view larger image.

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Directions:
Observatory is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins.

Enter Observatory via Proteus Gowanus Gallery
R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Gallery is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to the second door on the left.

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory: "Cuerpo Presente: Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico" Friday June 26th, 7:30 PM

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory:
'Cuerpo Presente': Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico, Featuring a Collection of Postmortem Photographs from Rural Mexico
Presented by Salvador Olguin
Friday June 26th
7:30 PM
Free

This illustrated lecture will present a series of postmortem photographs taken between the 1930’s and the 1950’s, when the tradition of celebrating a person’s departure with a last picture was very much alive in small towns and villages in Mexico. A brief journey through some of Mexico’s cultural and artistic ways of celebrating death will provide the frame and background for a better understanding of these images.

Presenter Salvador Olguin holds a MA in Humanistic Studies, and is currently performing research on the subject of the body and its representations at New York University. He is primarily interested in studying cultural artifacts that depict the body in non-normative, unusual ways. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico and currently resides in Brooklyn.

For more information, to see recent and upcoming Observatory events, or to email us questions or suggestions, visit observatoryroom.org.

Click on invitation to view larger image.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Directions:
Observatory is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins.

Enter Observatory via Proteus Gowanus Gallery
R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Gallery is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to the second door on the left.

Contemporary Post-Mortem Photography

A Colorado nonprofit organization has revived a grieving custom widely practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly in Britain and the United States: the making of photographic portraits of the dead, or "memento mori."

Read whole story on The Victorain Peeper. Make sure to check out the excellent links to 19th Century post-mortem photograph collections (from which these images were drawn) as well.