Stride Photo #2

[jmenges]

Madame Tussaud made the majority of her figures simply from measurements and sketches and just by looking at the subject and remembering what they looked like. It's not that difficult to sculpt a very good likeness of someone, just from sketches and memory, for a competent artist. If you look at some of Madame Tussaud's early works that were not taken from death masks, but sketches, they are absolutely superb. So I can't really see any problems with it being a contemporary waxwork.

In 1980 Madame Tussaud's wax museaum had an exhibit 'Jack the Ripper's Street'. It contained a wax work of MJK waiting at her door at Millers Court, as well as other wax figures.

JM

[Jane Coram]

Hi Dr Watson,

Just a point about the texture on the surface of the object in the photo.

I don't know if most people would know how wax figures are made, because it's not something that crops up a lot in the normal course of things.

One method is to make a plaster cast of the person's face and then pour the molten wax into it. The method of making the mould is the same whether the person is alive or dead more or less.

It's not a very nice process for the living, although the dead probably don't mind. If a person is still breathing, they put them on a table, stick a straw in their mouth, smack a load of grease on their face, shove a box around their head and pour a load of plaster of Paris or latex over them. When it's set, they have a perfect mould of the person's face. They then pour the hot melted wax into this.

The result is that you get a complete replica of the person's face, including pock marks, scars and even hair follicles.

If that object in the photo is a waxwork, then it definitely wasn't done from a death mask, because it's too dissimilar to Elizabeth in fine detail, although still a fair likeness generally. It would have to have been sculpted from sketches, modelled in clay and the mould made from that. The same thing applies though, the surface of the clay provides the skin texture for the wax. It's not quite as detailed as the texture from a life or death mask, but can still be very convincing.

I've cast my hand in wax but I left it in the sun accidentally, and you can guess what happened.

Hugs

Jane

xxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi Stephen,

I have to agree that the quality is very poor. Not wanting to sound unkind to the publishers, because it might well be that the book itself is a good one, but I'm afraid the artworking leaves a lot to be desired from the page that I've seen.

That photograph looks as if it's been reproduced a lot of times and is a copy of a copy of a copy. I'm pretty confident that it is an actual object in a photograph, rather than something created digitally, which would seem to agree totally with what you're saying.

Having said that, in defence of those suggesting that it could be a modern, digital image, it has to be said that it doesn't necessarily follow that a picture has to be old to be that poor quality. Every time a photograph is saved in something like Photoshop it can lose quality, and quite a lot of quality, if it isn't saved properly.

A photograph can literally be a few weeks old, and if it's copied enough in that time, it can end up looking just like that photograph. So, although I really don't think it at all likely that is a digitally produced image, to be fair, a new image could end up looking like that with bad handling


Hugs

Jane

xxxx

[Stephen Thomas]

Might "Severed" by John Gilmore be the book in question? I haven't seen it but it is about Elizabeth Short and the blurb mentions a photograph of Stride.

Hi Steve

Thanks for your contributions to this thread that have all been excellent.

It's not a digital anything as any fool can see if they look at the first photograph on this thread which obviously has really low resolution. Unless some benighted soul created this after 1988 and then took a photo of it with an antique camera then this image has to be more than somewhat old.

[Steven Russell]

Dr. Watson

Might "Severed" by John Gilmore be the book in question? I haven't seen it but it is about Elizabeth Short and the blurb mentions a photograph of Stride.

Best,

Steve.

[Dr. John Watson]

I'm still working on identifying the book in question, but I'm fairly certain it is not of recent vintage. My guess would be sometime between 1945 and 1985, based primarily on the "look" of the page and the photo of the British courtroom scene at the bottom, which appears dated to me.

About that "waxy" look: The face actually looks mottled to me, more like human skin and not smooth as wax would look. And the reflection just forward of the right ear could be bright sunshine coming from a nearby window. I found a recent photograph of a family member with a similar reflection on her face. She told me she was sitting near a window and the bright sun reflected off a glass vase onto her face; it nearly blinded her, so she turned her head a bit just before the picture was taken.

It's true that the throat wound looks a lot worse than on the known photo of Stride. However, isn't it possible that looseness or sagging of the skin of the neck might serve to hide the full extent of the wound, particularly if the body was in an upright position when photographed, as in the Eddowes photos? Mind you, I'm not offering an opinion that we're not looking at a wax figure, just trying to keep an open mind.

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

It would have to be a fairly recent publication for it to be a digitally created image.

The ability to create 3D images digitally has only been around a comparitively few years. So it hangs on the age of the book really.

If I wanted to produce that image exactly as it is to get the same effect, I would make it in wax and then photograph it. I haven't got any sculpted portraits left that I did in wax, otherwise I'd photograph them on my daughters laptop and put them up, to show the reflective quality you only get with wax. All I've got left a couple of porcelain prototypes I did, which has the same reflective quality as real skin. So not much help!

I don't really think it can be anything else but a waxwork though, looking at it overall.


Hugs

Jane

xxxxx

[Mitch Rowe]

If it were a waxwork and someone labeled the pic as Stride that person would be technically wrong but also right in a way.

[Bailey]

Some digitally manipulated drawing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Gotta say, this was my first reaction - not necessarily a drawing, but certainly that there was digital imagery involved. It just has that look.

I certainly feel that while the resemblance to the accepted Stride image is great, the face shape is too different. I'll allow for the possibilty of some undertaking being involved re the waxiness, but unless she was the victim of a little taxidermy on the side to account for the change in face shape, I don't buy it.

B.

[Stephen Thomas]

The neck wound is different and although it's not a bad likeness, there are considerable differences in the features. Judging by the fact that the figure was upright when the photograph was taken, it's shininess and it's rigidity, it is a waxwork. I can't really see it can be anything else.

Hi Jane

I'd say it's almost certainly a waxwork but I'm just exploring the possibility that it isn't. For instance the 'waxiness' could have been due to the attentions of the undertaker and the wound looks the same to me.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Stephen,

Well, obviously it can't be stated for certain that it is a waxwork figure, without knowing more about it, but as Simon's just said if it isn't then what is it?

It's certainly not a photograph of the real Elizabeth Stride. The neck wound is different and although it's not a bad likeness, there are considerable differences in the features. Judging by the fact that the figure was upright when the photograph was taken, it's shininess and it's rigidity, it is a waxwork. I can't really see it can be anything else. If it is a modern book, then it certainly could be a mock-up done some other way, a lot depends on the date of the book, but I'd probably plumb for a waxwork, looking at how shiny it is.

Madame Tussaud made the majority of her figures simply from measurements and sketches and just by looking at the subject and remembering what they looked like. It's not that difficult to sculpt a very good likeness of someone, just from sketches and memory, for a competent artist. If you look at some of Madame Tussaud's early works that were not taken from death masks, but sketches, they are absolutely superb. So I can't really see any problems with it being a contemporary waxwork.

As to how they got access to the body. We know that newspaper artists were allowed into the mortuary to sketch the victims, so why not an artist from a wax museum? He could even have just borrowed or bought the sketches from the newspaper artists. So he would have had reasonable access to everything he needed to do the portrait.

That of course is supposing that it's a contemporary work. If it was done after the discovery of the mortuary photograph, (depending on the date of the book of course), then they could have just used that.

Hugs

Jane

xxx

[Tom_Wescott]

Some digitally manipulated drawing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

If it's not a photograph or a waxwork dummy, what is it?

Regards,

Simon

[Stephen Thomas]

I never suggested it's a waxwork. I said it's not a photograph.

Oh OK, right, my friend.

So what the effing 'ell is it?

That's what I started this thread for.

And believe it or not it IS a photograph.

Try and find someone who says it isn't.

[Tom_Wescott]

I never suggested it's a waxwork. I said it's not a photograph.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott