Royal Ghost II

The second in a trio of dark art portraits of ghostly, royal figures.

Inspired by the morbid yet fascinating post-mortem photography, which was popular from the mid-19th through the early-20th centuries.

Post-mortem photography extended the centuries-old traditions of death masks and mortuary paintings, which commemorate the dead by fixing them in an illusion of life. But compared to these earlier media, photographs possessed an almost magical verisimilitude.

Many postmortem photographs are hard to look at. They’re too graphic or too desperate in their attempts to simulate life. But others provide an almost visceral connection to the past.

By @dehiscenceart, 2021 JPG, 5400px X 7200px