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supposedly objective photographs were infl uenced by
such modes of artistic photography as were practiced by
Diamond’s friend Henry Peach Robinson, who took one
of the only known photographic portraits of Diamond,
and formal studio portraits. One of Conolly’s case stud-
ies of religious melancholy, for example, was inspired by
Diamond’s c. 1852 photograph of a modestly dressed,
pensive young woman wearing a large cross around
her neck. The woman sits in front of a black curtained
backdrop as if she is in a portrait studio and rests her
left elbow on a plain wooden table while her hand rests
against her cheek in an iconographic gesture suggestive
of melancholy when used in painting and sculpture.
The subject has clearly been posed and manipulated to
produce the necessary effect leading to her “diagnosis.”
Conolly’s text responds to both the subject’s pose and
her facial features, stating that
“we discern the outward marks of a mind which, seem-
ingly, after long wandering in the mazes of religious doubt,
and struggling with spiritual niceties too perplexing for
human solution, is now overshadowed by despair. The
high and wide forehead, generally indicative of intel-
ligence and imagination; the slightly bent head, leaning
disconsolately on the hand; the absence from that col-lapsed cheek of every trace of gaiety... all seem painfully
to indicate the present mood and general temperament
of the patient.” (Conolly, 1858)
In other photographs Diamond added suggestive props
such as fl ower wreaths and farm animals to intimate
information about the patient’s malady.
Diamond offered his opinions about the use of
psychiatric photography in an address entitled “On the
Application of Photography to the Physiognomic and
Mental Phenomena of Insanity” presented to the Royal
Society of Medicine in May 1856. In this treatise he
outlined the three primary functions of psychiatric pho-
tography, which were to record the appearance of the
patient for physiognomic study; to identify the patient in
the case of readmittance; and to show the patient his or
her aberrant appearance in the hope that self-recognition
would result in self-help.
Diamond left his post at the Surrey County Lunatic
Asylum in 1858 to open a private asylum in Twickenham
House, Middlesex, which he operated until his death
in 1886. It appears that he stopped taking psychiatric
photographs at this time, but his work continued to have
a great infl uence on the psychiatric communities on both
sides of the Channel for Dr. G.B. Duchenne, Jean-Martin
Charcot and Sir Francis Galton all used photography
for medical purposes. Diamond did remain active in
the photographic community, however, serving as editor
of the Photographic Society’s journal from 1859 until
1869 and serving as secretary and a vice president of
that organization as well. In 1867 he was awarded the
medal of excellence from the Photographic Society.
Kimberly RhodesBiography
Hugh Welch Diamond was born in Kent in 1809, the
son of a surgeon who had worked for the East India
Company. He studied medicine at the Royal College of
Surgeons beginning in 1824 and continued his work at
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1828. He set up a private
practice in Soho Square soon after this and became a
Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1834. Dia-
mond became interested in psychiatry in the 1840s and
studied with Sir George Tuthill at Bethlem Hospital. In
1848 he became resident superintendent of the Female
Department of the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum and
remained in this post until 1858. During this period he
became actively involved with the practice of clinical
psychiatric photography and wrote articles about the
technical and scientifi c aspects of photography for such
journals as Notes and Queries. In 1852 he presented a
photographically illustrated lecture on the physiognomy
of insanity in London. These photographs were used by
John Conolly in his 1858 publication “The PhysiognomyDIAMOND, HUGH WELCH
Diamond, Hugh Welch. Patient, Surrey County Lunatic
Asylum.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection,
Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005
(2005.100.19) Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.