A Porcelain Portrait

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Passed this sepulchral photograph on a visit to St, Michael cemetery, in Queens. Such a beautiful face. 

Enameling, was a popular memorialization practice in which images of a deceased were transferred and affixed onto ceramic or porcelain and then attached to a gravestone.  A walk through older sections of cemeteries will likely yield a number of enameled portraits, some formally posed and others more candid. Many of the men are depicted wearing suits while the women often sported hats (as above).


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