![[Seated Woman with a Bird]](https://media.getty.edu/iiif/image/ae35ba4e-1bf3-405c-890a-731d34038f3f/full/808,/0/default.jpg)
Getty Museum
[Seated Woman with a Bird]
Creator
Hugh Welch DiamondBritish Photographer · 1809–1886
All works by this person →From 1848 to 1858 Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond made photographs to document the facial expressions of patients suffering from mental disorders at the Surrey County Asylum in England where he was superintendent of the female department. He believed that a patient's mental state was manifested in her physiognomy, or facial features, and he claimed to use these photographs to help diagnose the disorders. A
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1855
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- British
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
The woman in a straw hat with a blanket draped over her shoulders was a patient at the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum. In 1848 Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond became superintendent of the female department there and began a systematic photo-documentation of the inmates to supersede the engraved portraits commissioned by his predecessor. Diamond made the photographs both for the patients' personal records and to serve as aids in diagnosis and treatment. This patient's diagnosis is unknown, but the fact that the photograph was made in an insane asylum leaves open the interpretation of the scene. The way the woman cradles the dead bird with its limp, broken neck while wearing a surprised, slightly bemused expression presents an uneasy question of whether she mourns the bird's death or was the cause of it.
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