Life and Death

During the nineteenth century, a shift toward more enlivened representations of the deceased occurred, reflecting changes in the social structures of dying. Early Puritan beliefs and frequent experiences with death had resulted in a practical and unsentimental relationship with the corpse. However, declining mortality rates and an increasing emphasis on individuality led Americans to consider the corpse a hallowed entity, one that retained distinctiveness beyond death. Children were especially reverenced, considered innocents who were summarily received by Christ in heaven. Moreover, as the concept of the nuclear family deepened in significance, it became more difficult to accept breaks in the family constellation.  

These conditions led to portraits that had a purpose beyond simply recording family lineage; posthumous folk portraits functioned to imbue their sitters with life beyond death. Over time, a complex of symbols evolved to indicate the deceased status of the sitter and to make them seem “like a resurrection,” in the words of one contemporary commenting on the posthumous portrait of his sister-in-law. Despite their manifold nature, such motifs were subtle, so as not to detract primary attention from the depicted child.  

For example, in Ezra Ames’s A Daughter of Elkanah Watson, the combination of red, black, and white—visible in the drapery, her attire, and the column—have long been associated with death. The red draped curtain in particular recalls the cloth palls laid over the coffin in a funeral procession. The weeping willow in the background landscape is also strongly associated with mourning. Here, the tree serves as an analogy of sorrow and grief in a direct sense, its branches surrounding an urn and a pedestal that reads, in part, “Obituary, 1817” to denote the year of death of Watson’s grown child. Similarly, in Erastus Salisbury Field’s portrait of Josiah B. Woods Jr., the red drapery and sunset sky may allude to the child’s untimely demise. Yet, despite the palpable morbidity of each painting, the subject is shown as vibrant and lifelike. Watson’s child’s rosy cheeks, which reflect the florid red of the drapery, underscore her vitality and corporeality.   

One of the most fascinating symbols included in the lexicon of death and mourning is the portrayal of the deceased with one shoe off, a motif apparently derived from Renaissance images such as the fifteenth-century Byzantine icon Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which shows an infant Jesus sitting on his mother’s lap with one sandal dangling off his foot. In Father and Junior, the boy holds his golden cloth slipper in his left hand while his bare right foot hovers just inside the frame. Tellingly, the father seems to maintain tangible distance from his probably deceased child, while an expression of discomfort crosses his face.    

In group portraits, deceased children were often depicted alongside living members of their family, thus presenting them as abiding presences within the familial unit. In Mary and David Dalzell of South Egremont, Massachusetts, the artist suggests the early passing of the young girl in several ways, including her red, white, and black attire and the striking sunset in the distance. Further, to differentiate the two figures, the boy holds a book open to a rendering of a blooming rose, in contrast to the pallid white flower his sister grasps. The deathly motif persists regardless of the animated likenesses of both children.    

During the second half of the eighteenth century, artists often turned away from traditional painting and toward modern photography techniques to picture deceased children. These photographs belie the complex system of signs developed by folk painters to indicate the deceased status of the sitter and return to the tradition of rather plainly—and somewhat chillingly—documenting lost family members.  

Works Consulted 

• Hollander, Stacy C. Securing the Shadow: Posthumous Portraiture in America. New York: Antiques & Fine Arts Magazine, 2016.
• Heslip, Colleen Cowles, and Charlotte Emans Moore. “Catalogue of the Collection.” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 57, no. 1/2 (1998): 31–162, accessed July 26, 2021, www.jstor.org/stable/3774774.
• Schorsch, Anita. Images of Childhood: An Illustrated Social History. New York: Mayflower Books, 1979.