“She is not dead, but sleepeth”: Post-mortem Photography of Children in Victorian Britain

Brittany Hudak, Ph.D. Candidate Case Western Reserve University

Cleveland Museum of Art

Nineteenth-century engraving after Joshua Reynolds, Penelope Boothby, originally painted

1788.

Sir John Everett Millais, Cherry Ripe, 1870, oil on canvas, Makins collection.

Thomas Banks, Monument to Penelope Boothby, 1793, marble, Ashbourne Cathedral.

Francis Chantrey, The Sleeping Children (Monument to the Robinson Children), 1817,

marble, Lichfield Cathedral.

Unknown maker, Post-mortem of Unidentified Child on Couch, ca. 1860s, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.

Unknown maker, Post-mortem of Unidentified Child in Studio, ca. 1860s, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.

Unknown maker, Post-mortem of Child on Couch, inscribed: Caroline Mary Adye(?), 1862, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.

Lawrence Lowe, St. John’s Wood (London), Post-mortem of Mary G. Lamb, 1860,

inscribed Mary G. Lamb, 1860, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.

Henderson Studios, New Cross (London), Post-mortem of Unidentified Child in Studio, ca. 1860s, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.

CONSOLATION BOOKS

Our Children’s Rest, 1863

The Folded Lamb, 1852

Infants Asleep in Jesus, 1855

Unknown maker, Post-mortem of Unidentified Child on Couch, dated 1860,

hand-tinted stereoview, Private Collection.

William Pownall, Dukinfield Mall (Manchester), Post-mortem of Unidentified Child in Chair, ca. 1860s, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.

Sir John Everett Millais, My Second Sermon, 1863, oil on canvas, Guildhall Art Gallery.

William Pownall, Dukinfield Mall (Manchester), Post-mortem of Unidentified Child in Chair, ca. 1860s, carte-de-visite, Private Collection.