Obscura Antiques and Oddities
16-Apr-08
Allen St
16-Apr-08
Tibet Protest
14-Apr-08
Tibetans protesting human rights abuses in China, walking and chanting on 42nd Street, heading towards the UN. Latest news on the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
Grave Portraits
12-Apr-08
Holy Cross Cemetery, Yeadon, PA, just outside of Philadelphia, in the Italian section. It’s a photograph glazed onto ceramics. The dates are in the 1920’s, close to a century in the weather and they are still sharp and unfaded. I haven’t been able to find any definitive information on the photo- transfer technique used back then, one possibility is silk screen. Not all information is on the first couple of pages of a Google search. But FORGOTTEN FACES: A WINDOW INTO OUR IMMIGRANT PAST has this: “an artisan fashioned a photograph from gold, platinum and iridium alloys and fired it onto an enamel surface. A portrait made in this way can survive in a cemetery for well over 100 years.” Today it can be done with a laser printer.
Something is eating into this one, but note that the rest of the image is still unfaded.
This one is heartbreaking.