What portraiture meant to people in the 19th century in some ways is quite different from what it means to people today. In the 19th century, when they wanted a portrait done, it was usually of someone else, not necessarily themselves. They wanted portraits of their family members because death was so frequent and so near. Absences were dangerous. You could go away for a business trip and never come back.

William Notman’s oldest child, Fanny dies of spinal meningitis at the age of 11. His daughter Alice dies of typhoid at the age of 17. Such losses are not uncommon, and it is not uncommon for parents to memorialize them.

There’s also that wonderful similarity between post mortem photographs of children and photographs of children sleeping. Sometimes looking post mortem photographs you have to wonder which is which. And yet there’s the whole notion that death was “The Big Sleep.” Um, so I think that to understand post mortem photographs you have to understand attitudes to death in the 19th century, and also the importance of maintaining the links of family even after the person has died. The photograph of deceased children was very dear to grieving families, but also to the family long after the grieving had passed. It kept that child as part of the family, at least on paper.