Victoriana, Mourning, & Other Devotions

Johann Heinrich Füssli (1802)

Tilda Swinton | Surreal World

Irish Lace 1850

London Museum

Love this newly-found angel baby 🥀🌿

death rose from my herbárium

Cross My Heart, 12 x 16 inches, oil on linen

IG: @alissic

Lorenzo Bartolini (Prato 1777 – Firenze 1850).

These Victorian memorials in shadow boxes are getting harder and harder to find, so I was very grateful to be able to find another for you this season. It’s for a baby who died at just 2 years old in 1868. For me, it’s not just the cross shaped casket plate that tugs at my heart strings- it’s the addition of the orange blossoms, which would have been her mom’s wedding crown. The very large memorial I have in my own collection, which is for three children, includes orange blossom flowers as well. It’s a startling juxtaposition of symbols- the joy and promise of new marriage alongside the unimaginable pain of losing a child. But I remain fascinated by the ways people express themselves through material culture, and the stories these objects tell.

Jasmine Worth, “Lying Spirits”, 2015

— by Franz Sedlacek

finally got to explore an abandoned funeral home