Depiction of dead women in advertising

So who are the potential customers of the products that are advertised with prominently "dead" women? Surely not women themselves. Or have we gone back to the days when advertising companies make advertisements solely to win whatever the advertising equivalent of an Oscar is?

Sick

And, interestingly, the most popular painting in Tate Britain is Ophelia dead in the river. Plus ça change

Couple of other 'dead' paintings
Robespierre
And a poet whose name I can't think of who committed suicide!

Or Gerhard-Richter

Galen Would that have been Thomas Chatterton?

There is a world of difference between a painting and an advertisement!

I so agree, absent!

Thomas Chatterton I believe. I don't know where I dredged it up from though. My mind is full of useless trivia.

Yes, it was Thomas Chatterton. He committed suicide in 1770, aged 17. The painting 'The Death of Chatterton' was by Henry Wallis.

Yes micelf the Pre Raphelites did like their women pale and passive didn't they. Seem to remember the consumptive model had to spend hours lying in a cooling bath to capture that image. My sis did history of art so I expect she will have a few more suggestions from art. I suppose given the difficulty of painting the human form in oils it is not surprising that models appear in static poses rather than a bunch of Dianas in hot pursuit of a stag.
Women in traditional paintings are usually portrayed as objects rather than people - few of them are portraits that are trying to capture the personality.
Several paintings of the death of nelson of course. But he was a super-celeb.

More recently Lucian Freud, on his deathbed, painted by his (for many years) estranged son David..... yuck!

Not quite dead. Very different to models posed as rape victims!

@JessM - The consumptive model - that was Lizzie Siddall, posing for Millais. She has been described as the Pre-Raphaelite supermodel, and was muse to Dante Gabriel Rosetti...

Sorry, that's 'Siddal' - one 'l'

The difference being feetle that she did not command huge fees, was exploited by Rossetti and his mates and due to the position of women in society at the time, did not have personal status in society at large.
No very close parallels to Campbell and Moss who at least manage to charge huge fees for the use of their beauty by others.

Not that I support subjugation of women in any way but at least as an artists muse Siddal was not prostituting herself in more dangerous ways.

You mean being Rossetti's mistress literally kept her off the streets Penstemmon?

She nearly died in that bath of hypothermia, the others of the group nearly had a fight with the artist to get her out of it. He didn't want to have to take a break.

What about Judith slaying Holofernes?
See Wiki - many versions of this strong woman.

Not to mention that hussy Delilah although all she did was unman him.

He asked for water and she gave him wine, she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.

The paintings – from chilly Lizzie as Ophelia to the lovely boy who doesn't look much like he's swallowed arsenic – may have been painted for all sorts of reasons. Moody photographs of "dead" women, apparently, sell fashion. To whom? Gives a whole new meaning to "drop dead gorgeous".

When I was a teenager I was absolutely transfixed by the Death of Chatterton - that wonderful red hair against the greenish white face. Even after I went to art school and learnt that I must like Pop Art and disapprove of the Pre Raphaelites I still had a little corner of my brain saying "But Chatterton is lovely!"
I can't imagine any attraction in a advert using female "corpses" Of course Caravaggio came in for a lot of criticism when he used a drowned prostitute as a model for the Virgin Mary. Even he wasn't trying to sell anything.

Shock value - gets more media attention.