#some of these are OBVIOUS classics (robert the doll. man proposes. hope diamond) but some of these i didn't know about

[coffin-flop]

i spent too much time looking up cursed and haunted objects today, here are some of my faves <3 

Robert the Doll

Probably the second most famous haunted doll (Annabelle being the most popular). Allegedly, Robert’s facial expressions change & occasionally giggles. Robert brings bad vibes to the environment, being blamed for car crashes, physical accidents, familial disputes, and more. Even those who visit Robert at his current home (East Martello Museum) claim to experience bad luck & misfortune when they do not respect the doll well enough.

Man Proposes, God Disposes by Edwin Landseer

Owned by the Royal Holloway, University of London. Obviously, it’s gruesome as a painting, it gets grosser when you realize it was inspired by Franklin’s lost expedition. Being in a university’s collection, the rumors surrounding this painting aren’t unlike many university spirits. The claims are that the painting drives students mad, essentially. There are different reports (depending on the source you go to) that state the painting has been blamed for students enacting acts of violence on themselves, not that the school has records to back it up. Now it’s mostly blamed for students failing their exams. It’s now covered during final exams as to not cause any students to fail (or go mad) over a painting.

Dead Man’s Chair

Once a regular oak chair at the Busby Stoop Inn, this chair was allegedly cursed by Thomas Busby just before his execution for the murder of his father-in-law in 1702. There are different reasons for why/how he cursed it, some say he was sitting in the chair before getting arrested, one source claims he asked to stop at the bar for one last drink in his favorite chair before on the way to his execution. Whenever he was in the chair, after finishing his drink, he hoped that all who dared to sit in his chair would die…. And apparently, they do. In WWII, airmen from a nearby base would stop at the pub and it was claimed that those who sat there never returned. It’s also vaguely claimed that the chair was linked to fatal accidents in the 70s, but it was hard to find any examples of these.

The Hope Diamond

Probably the most famous piece of cursed jewelry, mostly because pop culture definitely fell in love with using this one anytime it needs a fancy jewel. It’s now owned by the National Museum of Natural History, but before then caused a hell of a lot of havoc. The claim is that the Hope Diamond is blamed for gruesome deaths of its previous owners. Some were murdered by their partners, some killed in wars, one was killed by a pack of wild dogs, one murdered at the hand of a mob. Looking at this thing though, I personally may blame the curse on excessive wealth rather than the jewel itself.

The Tallman Bunk Bed

Purchased in a thrift shop in the late 80s, the family stored the bed in their basement as they settled into the house. When they removed the bunk bed from the basement and added it to the main part of the house three months later, the family claims they experienced nine full months of haunting. The descriptions of the haunting are pretty typical: a negative effect on the family’s house, apparitions appearing to different family members, visions of fire, doors banging open and closed, ghostly whispering, etc etc. The family is surprisingly quiet about their haunting experience and try to maintain their own family’s anonymity when discussing it publicly, which sort of rules out everybody’s first explanation for any haunting (“they’re just trying to get attention”).

Anna Baker's Wedding Dress

The story behind this dress is that this dress was bought for a young woman (Anna Baker) by her father for her wedding day. Her shitty dad forbade her from marrying the man she fell in love with, as he was a poor laborer. After refusing their marriage, Anna turned down every other suitor her father brought to her, dying unmarried. The wedding dress is said to move and shake within its case, as if dancing, and some claim Anna’s apparition has been seen in the house wearing the dress.

The Dead Mother by Edvard Munch

If this art style looks familiar, it��s painted by Edvard Munch, more popularly known for “The Scream.” And yes, he has another spooky painting. It is of… exactly what it looks like, a child standing in front of their deceased mother. It may be worth noting that Munch’s own mother died of TB when he was just five years old, which could be part of the blame for the strong emotion associated with this piece. Sources claim the sheets of the mother’s bed can be heard rustling, and that the child’s eyes follow onlookers around the room…… Some even claim that the child’s apparition even leaves the painting from time to time.