#caroline sackville damer

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Here is another personal favourite of mine, Caroline and Joseph Damer, later 1st Earl of Dorchester:

Images by Mike Searle via Wikimedia Commons (1), (2).

This person has some even better pictures and close-ups on their Flickr account.

Caroline Damer died in 1775 aged 57, and her husband, heartbroken, commissioned the Italian sculptor Agostino Carlini to create this marble tomb.

Joseph survived her by 23 years, but, from all I could find, never had a subsequent spouse or partners.

What gets me is how well Carlini captured the difference between the dead and the living person and how, rather than following the old saying of Christian origins intended to comfort grieving people that the dead "watch over" their loved ones from above, it is Joseph who gazes down at Caroline, unable to take his eyes off her after 33 years of marriage, even in death. And continues to do so, even now.

The Dead Lovers by Edvard Munch / Vienna Cemetery / Lovers of Valdaro / The Lovers of Modena / Hasanlu Lovers / Monumento Rossi / Dave Navarro & Carmen Electra by David LaChapelle / A Memorial to Marriage by Patricia Cronin / Monumento Scarneo / Olavi Lanu / Bronze Age Scythian Couple / The Life & Death of a Relationship - Sue Law / Lovers of Turuel / New Orleans Botanical Garden / Etruscan Sarcophagi / Gravestone commissioned by widow for deceased husband - Mt. Macedon Cemetery / Eternal Love - Frank Kunert / Meant To Be - Bruno Caesar / Roman Sarcophagus / Sarcophagus of the Spouses

[themaninthegreenshirt]

Tragic and intimate, the memorial to Lady Caroline Sackville [died 1775], depicts husband, Joseph Damer, mourning over her. Carved by A Carlini. The Abbey Church, Milton Abbas.