Portraits, scenery, comedic scenes and images of. This culminated in the general public paying to visit the asylum, creating a circus-like environment for those in treatment. In either case, smiling in Victorian portraits made people appear buffoonish as if they were modern-day court jesters. Special cameras were developed to make the images, and a variety of viewers produced to keep up with demand. Given the need to generate funds in order to maintain the burgeoning medical institution, the asylum used its residents - sick, criminal, poor - as revenue sources. This perhaps stemmed from the fact that not just the ill resided in the site: as prisons became overcrowded, criminals often carried out their sentence in the asylum, while others used the institution as a dumping ground for unwanted dependents. Valenti Serov contributed with the Girl with Peaches (1887) Famous Victorian Post-Impressionism Portraits. Auguste Renoir drew Young Boy with a Cat (1868) and La Loge (1874) A woman in a Green Dress (1866) was the amazing creation of Claude Monet. Though intended as a refuge for the sick, the asylum operated more as a correctional institution than a treatment facility. Famous Victorian Impressionism Portraits. Shifting political mores brought forth increased investment in public health institutions - one of which included the lunatic asylum, a product of the nascent medical practice of psychiatry. The Victorian Era ushered in several significant changes with regard to medicine and the treatment of the ill. The mental asylums of 19th century England housed the criminal, the insane, and the unwanted. Victorian Portrait Company Lynmouth, Victorian Portraits, Victorian Photos, Old Time Photography, Vintage Portraits, Portrait Studio Devon, Sepia Photo.