The Bizarre Victorian Tradition of Postmortem Photographs!

Mourning Parents with dead daughter (center)

To commemorate  the morbid occasion of the death of a loved one, or to remember the deceased, Victorians came up with the rather gruesome tradition of having photographs taken of the dead person either with or without the living family! This was especially popular with families with a recently dead children and babies. The photographer would arranged the body so it looked as alive as possible, but the added arrangements and sometimes even effects just seem to make the body look slightly more unsettling and disturbing! Sometimes photographers would use a contraption to prop up the corpse and occasionally, eyes and rosy cheeks were printed onto the image in a vain attempt to make them look more alive. Children would normally be photographed with their favourite toys and sometimes even siblings! The most pleasant and nicest looking images are the ones where the people are photographed to look asleep. 

Sources:

~ MNN: 7 most morbid Victorian mourning traditions