Mortality Lives Again as Funeral and Cemetery Items Pique Interest

[C. Dianne Zweig Editor's Desk]

Mortality Lives Again as Funeral and Cemetery Items Pique Interest

The painful subjects of mourning and burying the dead are drawing attention at museums and auction houses, while some attractions in the field are reaching the ends of their runs.

In the last year the Museum of Death in Los Angeles opened a New Orleans branch, where coffins and autopsy equipment are displayed, and a show at the Palace of Versailles, “The King Is Dead” (through Feb. 21), commemorates the 300th anniversary of Louis XIV’s fatal bout of gangrene and examines his embalmment, elaborate funeral and interment. There have been shows and books aboutGreen-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn,Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, the graves of early Maryland settlers, the evolution of gravestone and coffin makers’ tools, the significance ofphotographing corpses and mourning attire.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/arts/design/mortality-lives-again-as-funeral-and-cemetery-items-pique-interest.html?ref=topics