In the current issue of The Journal of Psychohistory, Henk van Setten's
most interesting article "Album Angels: Parent-Child Relations as Reflected
in 19th-Century Photos, Made After the Death of a Child" reproduces and
analyzes a number of photos of dead children taken in 19th-century
Netherlands, pointing out that "In the early 19th century in the
Netherlands [there was] a sudden explosion of literature about dead
children" and asking "Why was this attention to the grief caused by the
loss of a child intensified in the early 19th century? . . . 'Modern'
pictures in the same period (the second half of the 19th century) were
quite different. Just reproducing an image of the dead child was not enough
here. This kind of photo also tried to capture somehow the parents- grief
for the child, for the lost relation and the lost future. In this kind of
photo, often the two parents posed together with the little corpse. If this
was an older child, it was often placed in the father's lap; if it was a
baby or toddler, usually the mother was holding it. Here was expressly
shown a relationship, a reality that had been broken by death."
I'll be happy to send a free copy of this issue to anyone who emails me
their postal address.
Lloyd
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