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Ransom Riggs
Your door is a jar. My mother is a chair.
by Ransom Riggs - April 13, 2007 - 2:00 PM

Check out this turn of the century tintype, posted by Swapatorium, in which this baby’s mother is actually disguised as the “chair” he’s sitting in. Swapatorium’s blogger says he has “a small collection” of mother-as-chair photographs, and a commenter mentions that the Columbus, Ohio Museum of Art devoted “a whole exhibition on the ‘mother-disguised-as-furniture’ genre” a few years ago. (The Victorians, I have to say, were strange, strange people.)
chair.jpg

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Comments (12)

  1. Your door is a jar=
    My uncle is a door. (Isadore)

    posted by David on 4-13-2007 at 2:25 pm

  2. Like this is the first time you’ve seen a Chairwoman.

    posted by Sheldon Siegel on 4-13-2007 at 2:49 pm

  3. Well, they did treat women like objects back then.

    posted by Eric Frank on 4-13-2007 at 3:18 pm

  4. I don’t know about anyboyd else, but this picture gives me an insanely creepy feeling!

    posted by hannah on 4-13-2007 at 7:48 pm

  5. or rather, *anybody!

    posted by hannah on 4-13-2007 at 7:48 pm

  6. This picture gives me the creeps too!

    posted by Linda Duggan on 4-14-2007 at 1:14 am

  7. My mother is a fish

    posted by bob on 4-14-2007 at 12:44 pm

  8. Speaking of strange Victorian customs, I saw a book of Victorian photographs of corpses dressed and posed in their homes to look as if they were still alive. Talk about creepy!

    posted by Kathi on 4-14-2007 at 5:06 pm

  9. Seems to me to be a very clever way to keep the baby from crying or freaking out so its picture can be taken.

    posted by John Dough on 4-15-2007 at 10:03 am

  10. I think the child is being held by the Nanny. A Black Nanny from what I see in the photo. I belive that back in those days it was uncommon for any household help be involved in a picture of the family, so they draped the nanny as part a the chair…then the photographer could edit as he wished.

    posted by Sophia on 4-15-2007 at 9:49 pm

  11. I have a small child - photographers still use this technique to keep infants settled!! Nowadays it tends to be a sheet of black velvet draoed over the mother.

    posted by Sam on 4-16-2007 at 5:51 am

  12. I have worked as a child’s photography, and I don’t think the photo is creepy but smart. Some kids just do not want to cut the apron strings. Some photographers just thought of a good way to keep Victorian kids from screaming.

    posted by Beth on 4-16-2007 at 1:41 pm

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