As the day was damp and misty, I spent yesterday evening continuing to look through the many photograph albums in the study. Transfixed by the somber faces rendered in black and white, I scarcely noticed that darkness had fallen and the gentle drizzle of rain had turned into a heavy downpour. When I got up and flipped the switch to turn on the light, I realized that the electricity had gone out throughout the house! Luckily, there are plenty of old oil lamps and candles that I then put to good use. With the study lit in a dim and eerie glow, I continued to peruse the portraits; in the flickering light, their eyes seemed to follow my gaze across the pages. After looking at so many old photos, one begins to feel almost haunted.
And haunted I well may be after what I discovered next!
As Hadoque mentioned earlier in the thread, there was a fashion during the 19th century for photographing subjects
post mortem. While this may seem strange to us today, one must remember that we live in a world where we may have hundreds of pictures of friends and loved ones to serve as keepsakes and mementos; during the early days of photography, one was lucky to have even one photographic portrait by which to remember one's relatives.
Last night, in the ghostly light of the study, I came across one such
post mortem photograph.
On the back of the photograph is written: "Memorial portrait of Lydia Ashburn with parents, Mr. & Mrs. John T. Ashburn, 1889." John Ashburn was a well-to-do banker in town, and the Ashburn family was one of the early families to live in the house. I'm unsure if the photograph was taken in a studio or in the house, but the wallpaper does seem to match that found in the dining room downstairs
The 19th century also saw mainstream interest in spiritualism—the idea that the living could interact with and communicate with the spirits of the dead. As one may imagine, this led to all sorts of frauds and hoaxes, from so-called psychics and mediums, to special devices that could help one communicate with the spirit world. I tend to be a staunch skeptic in most cases, but sitting in that all-to-quiet study, lit with nothing but a dim and ghostly candlelight and the rain hitting upon the window glass, I began to wonder if I was truly alone in the room.
If the dead could speak, would we want to hear what they had to say?
I must confess, my heart skipped a beat when the light landed upon the image I found next...
One of the more interesting phenomenon from this period was the fad of fraudulent "spirit photography." Often, an assistant or accomplice dressed in a sheet would sneak out behind the unsuspecting sitter while the picture was being taken; the ghostly image would only become apparent after the photograph was developed. This seems to be the case with the Daguerreotype photograph found above. The only information about the photograph is written on a paper tag inside, which says simply "Bernice, 1849."
To end the post on a slightly lighter note, I thought I would share a portrait of the previously-mentioned Count von Stein, of whom I already shared a few photos. The portrait, which dates to the early 1860s, hangs in one of the many luxurious
châteaux just outside of Paris at which the Count stayed during his time in France.
