This image from c. 1843 is typical of early postmortem portraits, which tended to focus primarily on the corpse (particularly the upper half of the body) and displayed a plain and sometimes severe sensibility. This style and focus reflected religious beliefs of the time about death and salvation.

During this period of postmortem photography, few attempts to mask the signs of death were made. Many portraits portrayed the physicality of death in a very frank manner. This lack of self-consciousness about showing physical death is particularly discombobulating for modern viewers.

Here the woman subject is dressed plainly with a simple bonnet that reflects the style of the time and she is photographed lying in a plain coffin. This would have been a typical setting in 1843, when decorative, embellished caskets were only beginning to be manufactured and marketed. Most Americans were still being buried in a plain coffin.

The woman in this image is identified as Miss Elizabeth Cooper, aged 29 years and eight months, of Geneva, New York.

Credit: © Stanley B. Burns, MD and The Burns Archive

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