This cabinet card is a postmortem photograph of a young girl. The image is upsetting and sad, but served as a remembrance of a family member for their grief stricken family. Note the flowers and cross lying on the child’s bed and the religious statues and candles on the side table. The photographer of this cabinet card was R. Dechavannes, whose studio was located in Paris, France. To view other photographs by Dechavannes, click on the category “Photographer: Dechavannes”. Hopefully, visitors to the cabinet card gallery will not find this image offensive. A website called “Ostrobogulous Cackleberries”, has an interesting article about the practice of postmortem photography. The writer states that during the Victorian era, photographing the recently deceased was “extremely prevalent”. The author points out that the practice existed before the invention of the camera. Instead of photographing the dead, artists painted their portraits immediately following their death. In many cases, the postmortem photo was the only image a family possessed of the departed family member. Many of the Victorian memorial photographs were of infants and children. The mortality rate of children during that time was very high. The writer offers a description of how the dead were posed and there seems to be a great deal of approaches to the practice. Postmortem images could be full body or facial close-ups. Coffins were not frequently included in the picture. The dead were often posed as if they were sleeping and sometimes were presented as life-like. In some photos they were braced or tied into chairs or propped up against other family members to look as alive as possible. According to the article, the popularity of postmortem photography faded in the early twentieth century. Funerals moved from the home parlor to the funeral parlor. Society stopped “embracing mortality” and we became the death denying culture of today. SOLD
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Yvonne Sautrot is the subject of this 1896 cabinet card portrait by Reutlinger, a well known celebrity photography studio. Miss Sautrot assumes a most seductive pose in this risque image. To view other photographs by this celebrated studio, click on the category “Photographer: Reutlinger”. The reverse of this photograph lists the address of the studio as “Paris 21 Boulevard Monmarte, Paris. A stamp on the back of the image states “Hazebrouco, Incenieur – Opticien Paris”. Miss Sautrot assumes a most seductive pose in this image. Munsy Magazine (1896) published a portrait of Yvonne Sautrot and announced that she was playing in an adaptation of a popular English Melodrama called “The Fatal Card”. The French production went under the name of “La Dame de Carreau” (“The Queen of Hearts”). The writer of the article was preoccupied with Miss Sautrot’s beauty. He described her “charming features” and stated that “her beauty might well fit her to take” the place of actress Amy Busby who acted in the earlier version of the play. The writer also complimented Sautrot’s “special talent for posing effectively” in front of the camera. The Reutlinger Photography Studio was opened by Charles Reutlinger in Paris in 1850. Reutlinger was of German descent. The studio took portraits of many of the world’s beautiful, rich and famous people of the era. In 1880, Charles’ brother, Emile (1825-1907) took over operation of the studio. He was joined by his son Leopold (1863-1937) in 1883. Leopold took over the studio in 1890 and operated the business until 1930 when he lost an eye in an accident involving a champagne cork. (SOLD)
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THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 