Saturday, November 20, 2010

The Hidden Mother



PHOTOGRAPHY BUFFS may already know about the “hidden mother” in early photographs, but some of my readers may not. So—this is for them. Shown above are two recently auctioned tintypes, both of which are excellent examples of this 19th century phenomenon. You see, most infants during that time were photographed with their mothers holding them. The intended picture was ultimately headed for a frame or mat, so the child would sit in the mothers lap for the photo. When the picture was taken, the mother simply was cropped out to serve as the backdrop.

In the top right photo, I have shown a suggested cropping, with the mother cropped out. Without a mat, the photos are decidedly creepy—but that's the way it was (under the mat), over 100 years ago. “Hidden Mother” tintypes are highly sought after by collectors.

This is an Accidental Mysteries re-post from December 2008.

16 comments:

Tony Renner said...

awesome! i love learning stuff!

Sidni said...

Great examples of Hidden Mothers. I am fascinated with the phenomena and loved your post. Thanks!

moongipsies said...

I had no idea...

Anonymous said...

Fascinating

GadgetSponge.com said...

Very creepy, but something I can look for now. Thanks for the education!

Felix Curds said...

hello there:) i agree with PaperSponge, this is slightly creepy, but in the best way possible.

Anonymous said...

These photos of hidden mothers are really creepy I wouldn't have a collection of these pictures, instead I would like to have a collection of buy kamagra

Lisa said...

Fascinating! I've never heard of that.

Léa H. said...

Thank you so much for this. I have read something about the Hidden Mothers phenomena a while ago.
This post just made my day. Very interesting.

Ramesh said...

The hidden mother photo gallery looks not bad. kamagra online

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Jojo P. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jojo P. said...

black and white photo is so appealing! I can't find the words for it. it's just stunning my friend.


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