Can someone please date this lady and baby for me? COMPLETED - THANKS EVERYBODY

[jim1]

This was taken 1884,there are similarities with your picture.

[toni*]

the baby dies indeed look slumped its not a post-mortem carte de visite is it?

[Maggie.]

Jim - yes there are similarities, apart from my lady has a great deal more hair piled on top of her head, and this dating would fit my scenario.

Toni - slumped baby - if it is who I suspect it is, he lasted until 1934, although I would agree he or she does not look in the best of health in this photo.

Charles - thanks for this - it is nice to have all the speckles and blotches removed.  I would love to know for sure who this lady is - I suspect she may be my gt. grandmother and grandfather is the baby.  I have had the photo for years, since way before I became interested in family research.  I seem to remember my grandmother giving it to me and saying she didn't know who it was but suspected it may be 'something to do with her husband' (who at the time had been dead for over 30 years so we couldn't ask!).

Maggie

[JJbeech]

I know this is marked completed, but could i be so rude as to enquire if you found out if the baby was who you thought it was?

The reason I asked is because i, like toni wonder if this is a post-mortem carte de visite, the eyes seem wrong and as a practise was to paint "eyes" on closed lids it looks possible. I am also certain i have seen an almost identical pic on a victorian post mortem collection.

Hope i'm not being too rude and apologises if i am but post mortem pics are intrest of mine.

jj

[saddles]

Hi Maggie........I can't help with dates so I have coloured your photo instead.


Carolyn 

[Maggie.]

Perhaps I had better remove the 'Completed Thanks',  as JJ and I have been  exchanging PMs (and I mean messages not post-mortems  ) on this baby all afternoon

The conclusion we are arriving at is that it is indeed a post-mortem picture and I think the baby's eyes are open rather than painted on the lids as there is a very hollow, ill look to the eyes.  Presumably had they been painted, they would have been made to look healthier.

The census records for what I think is this family do not indicate any children died between 1871 and 1881 but there is quite a large gap between the birth dates of my grandfather and his 2 older sisters, which could indicate the death of a sibling.

Thanks so much, Carolyn, for the added colour - much appreciated

Maggie

[chinakay]

Wonder why the mother's hands look so relaxed...?

China

[Maggie.]

Its a very odd photo - her eyes are very peculiar, her hands also.  Could she also be PM 

[chinakay]

Yikes, hadn't occurred to me but all the pm photos I have seen have been with the "sitter" in a supine position. It would take a very great deal of work to position a 130-pound woman in an upright pose and I don't think you'd get much in the way of a lifelike look....in other words this may be an odd photo but with a dead woman posing I think it would look a great deal odder

China