They
go by many names – those faces from the past. Ceramic pictures, photo porcelain plaques, memorial
portraitures, even postmortem portraits.
They first began appearing on gravestones in the U.S. back at the turn of the century. What began
as a oval porcelain tablet with an image transferred on to it has changed and
been refined over the years into modern day ceramic memorial plaques that are
weather and fade resistant.
In
1854 two French photographers, Bulot and Cattin, patented a process to adhere a
photographic image to porcelain or enamel by firing it in a kiln. The original
ceramic pictures were done in black and white and then mounted on
gravestones. The process caught on
throughout Eastern and Southern Europe, and Latin America. 
For
the first time, ceramic pictures made it easy and affordable for the graves of
the working class to be personalized with a likeness of the deceased. Before
this only the wealthy had sculptures, busts, and carvings done in their
likenesses on their tombs.
In
1893, the J.A. Dedouch Company began in Oak Park, Illinois. They quickly became one of the most
popular companies that manufactured ceramic tombstone pictures. In 2004, Dedouch was sold to the
Canadian company, PSM. After one
hundred eleven years in business, J.A. Dedouch was also the oldest company to
have crafted these memorial portraits.
By
the turn of the century this type of personalization was becoming very popular
and available around the world. The 1929 Montgomery
Wards & Company Monuments catalog sold ceramic pictures for gravestones and
described them as eternal portraits that “endow the resting place of the dead
with a living personality.” Priced
from $6.50 to $13.50, they were available in an oval, round, or rectangular
shape and came in three different sizes. 
Today,
ceramic pictures come in a variety of sizes and shapes including the
traditional oval, rectangular, and round shapes along with
heart
shaped images. The pictures are
now done mainly in color, although black and white, and sepia tones are still
available. The pictures are digitized,
placed on porcelain shapes, and then baked at 1600 degrees so the image will
not fade. A 3 x 4 oval will run
around $300. Ceramic pictures can
also be mounted on mausoleum doors, benches, cremation urns, and columbariums.
Ceramic
memorial pictures give us the opportunity to glimpse back into history. As the
old adage goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul,” and these ceramic
memorial plaques allow us one more chance to look into the eyes of this long-ago past and
identify personally with someone who lived in it.
~
Joy
