Unfortunately, post-mortem photography was commonly the only chance that a family may have to preserve the image of their loved one.

Painting dead people was common for centuries, so it’s no surprise that, in the Victorian Era, post-mortem photos also came into fashion. Here are some of the strangest ones.

Post-mortem photography – also known as memorial portraiture or "memento mori" (a Latin phrase meaning ‘remember your mortality’), dovetailed with the era’s high mortality rates.

This technique was often used to take post-mortem photographs of dead children — the mother and siblings gathered still and silent around a decaying infant whose eyes are being held open with ...

BRISTOL — An upcoming presentation by the Elkhart County Historical Museum will feature "Post-Mortem Photography and the Victorian Culture of Death." The program, at 11 a.m. Friday, June 14, is ...

The advent of photography in the Victorian era provided an affordable alternative to expensive painted portraits. Grieving families hired post-mortem photographers to capture what was likely to be the ...

The woman, who collects Victorian era post-mortem photography, says the photos are real, but the listings are a joke.

"Dead Still," starring Michael Smiley as a "post-mortem photographer," offers a fascinating look into a weird Victorian-era occupation: taking photographs of corpses "posing" with their very-much ...

This eventually evolved into the phenomenon of post-mortem photography - images of dead relatives arranged in a lifelike pose, sometimes even with eyes having been painted on to mimic the ...