Memento Mori

So, in addition to jewelry made from hair, Victorians memorialized their loved ones by having daguerrotypes made of them. According to a contributor to Daily Oddities, "This was especially common with infants and young children; Victorian era childhood mortality rates were extremely high, and a post-mortem photograph might be the only image of the child the family ever had. ... The earliest post-mortem photographs are usually close-ups of the face of shots of the full body and rarely include the coffin. The subject is usually depicted so as to seem in a deep sleep, or else arranged to appear more lifelike. Children were often shown in repose on a couch or in a crib," often joined by a favorite toy or family member. Sometimes the subject's eyes were propped open or pupils were painted onto their eyelids. Later European examples popularly featured "the deceased in a coffin with a large group of funeral attendees.