Yes I spent some time reading the faces, trying to ascertain who was looking at what, and their mood. #3 Manual of Portugal thinking,
I am too an adult, not knowing he'd be gone in a few months. Or #1 Haakon of Norway thinking,
oh yeah? come see me in the winter ya pussies. And #4 Kaiser Wilhelm,
Uncle Ed is dead, we're on our own cousins, all alone, cousins, let's think of a game to play, now the grownups have all gone away. That game turned out to be WW I.
In that it was 1910, and this posed picture was taken by a professional photographer, I wonder how many other people were in the room. As it was a funeral, if there were others they were aide de camps, personal attendants, moustache stylists, and such. I also wonder how many photographs were taken? Granted they were most certainly using a big box camera, and I doubt like hell pros would snap one shot and take their chances. But I haven't seen any others. I think a different shot would be recognizable because they aren't posed stiff like statues, at least in this shot they appear to have varying degrees of attention. And the photographers know you don't order nine fucking kings around like a school class picture.
All in, I found it to be a fascinating photograph, the end of British dominance over leadership of the continent as the people of other countries were eyeing France's revolution and watching the idea of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, produce a revolving door of dictators, heroes, despots, and den mothers.
But the time had come to purge royalty or turn them into expensive national mascots. The King is dead, I wonder if the Queen would like some company.
