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02-059; Young Child on a Fainting Couch

1890-1899
Janet E. Finley Collection of Quilt History Photographs
Carte De Visite (CDV) c. 1885-1892
Photographer: Unknown
Size: 2.5" x 4"

This beautiful Victorian child may or may not be a post mortem. The object of Victorian post mortem photography was to pose the deceased or gravely ill to appear as lifelike as possible as the parents wished to record what very well could prove to be their final opportunity to remember their treasured loved one. Quilts can never be relied on to date a photograph, the Victorian-era Crazy quilt being the one exception because of its abundant appearances during its heyday between 1880-1900. The Crazy quilt in this particular CDV shows a musical intstrument, shaped like a guitar, adorning a Crazy patch, yet the remaining patches are plain, which reflects the transition of the Crazy quilt from the very elaborate embroidered patches of the 1880s to more of a utility quilt found going into the early decades of the twentieth century.

-- With permission of the publisher, excerpted from Janet E. Finley, Quilts in EveryDay Life 1855-1955 (Schiffer Publishing, 2012).

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