The Morthouse

Lydia Dwight Dead; made by John Dwight’s Fulham Pottery; England; 1674. Source: V&A Museum.

One of the earliest experiments in European ceramic sculpture, this object was commissioned by the father of the dead child in order to capture her likeness and perpetuate her memory. It was a personal and private sculpture, reflecting the grief of the little girl’s family, and perhaps not intended for open display in the house. […]

Lydia Dwight was six years old when she died on 3 March 1674 (1673 by the Old Calendar). The fact that the next daughter was also christened Lydia does not suggest lack of grief on the part of the parents, but was usual practice in an age noted for its high infant mortality.

Photograph by Charles Van Schaick, undated. Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Source: Wisconsin Historical Society.

European American man layed out on a lounging sofa, dressed in a suit. Probably a corpse lying in state.

Image: A post-medieval skull with a coin in each eye orbit, excavated from Bethnal Green, London. Copyright AOC Archaeology.

Via Bones Don’t Lie: Coin in the Mouth or Shoe in the Coffin.

I focus on human, not animal, death on this site, but this was too human not to post.

Cat burial scene, 1925. Weir, Québec. Source: Library and Archives Canada.

tuesday-johnson:

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

via the Missouri History Museum

mediumaevum:

Mourning-figures by Claus Sluter

Tomb of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon; c. 1405

funeral-wreaths:

Golden funeral wreath from Italy, 4th century BC.

Source

(via nocnitsa)

glassseyes:

Postmortem of a child

(via thanatomanie)

Black teddy bear from England, ca. 1910. From the V&A Museum:

This teddy bear’s name is Blackie, for obvious reasons. It is an early English bear and may have been made to commemorate the death of Edward VII. Black is not a very common colour for teddy bears and is usually associated with a tragic event.

Civil War widow CDV. Source: Lisby1 on Flickr.

(via glassseyes)

Scythe

ingridrichter:

Death; time; the cutting off of life; an attribute of Chronos/Saturn and of the figures of the Reaper and Death. The scythe also symbolizes the harvest which, in turn, implies death and rebirth, the destructive and creative powers of the Great Mother.

An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C. Cooper, 1978.

(via midnight-gallery)

Mourner at the Grave, Albumen Carte de Visite, Circa 1863 by lisby1 on Flickr.

“Copied by the London Photographic Compy., 1B Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater W., and 304 Regent Street W.”

This is a mass-produced sentimental image. The woman, dressed in widow’s mourning, laments at a real grave—however, it is too old a grave to be any of any freshly lost relative of her own. Thanks to modern technology the inscription can be read as “In affectionate remembrance of Frederick William Paige…who departed this life September 11, 1814, age 35.”

glassseyes:

Note reads - “My beloved son Carl taken from me on April 1, 1865, at age 18, killed at Dinwiddie. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

source - Library of Congress