Actually, this tradition has its own beauty. If you put yourself in their shoes, death was a big part of their everyday life. These photos were a final act of remembrance, something tangibly intimate in an era where death could come swiftly and without warning. And although it might seem …

This practice isn't exclusively Victorian, though they certainly popularized it with the advent of photography. In many cultures, honoring the dead with images or effigies has been standard. In a time when photographs were a luxury, this might be your only chance to capture a person's likeness, albeit posthumously. Moreover, …