Nine illustrated studies — original artwork by Elizabeth Condrey
Cemetery Collections
Tombstones — Set No. 1
Nine original illustrated studies of historic gravestone forms — drawn from the field, rendered in ink, and offered as a limited collection.
In preparation
This collection is in preparation. Pricing, format, edition size, and availability will be confirmed before orders open. No purchase is possible at this stage.
About the collection
Tombstones — Set No. 1 is a collection of nine original illustrated studies drawn from historic American cemeteries. Each piece documents a distinct gravestone form — the tablet, the obelisk, the ledger, the urn-and-willow, the broken column, the cradle grave, the tree-stump marker, the fieldstone, and the box tomb — rendered in fine ink with attention to weathering, moss, and the particular character that time gives stone.
The collection is rooted in the same practice that drives the Cemetery Journal: the belief that a gravestone is not merely a marker but a document — of craft, of grief, of the visual language a community chose to speak across time. These drawings are an attempt to read that language carefully and carry it forward.
Set No. 1 is the first in a planned series of illustrated cemetery field studies. Future sets will explore regional gravestone traditions, specific historic cemeteries, and the evolution of memorial symbolism across American burial grounds.
The nine studies
The Tablet
The most common form in early American burial grounds — upright, rounded or shouldered, often bearing the full epitaph.
The Obelisk
A symbol of eternal life borrowed from Egyptian antiquity. Common in Victorian rural cemeteries for families of means.
The Ledger
A flat horizontal slab covering the full grave. Among the oldest surviving forms in colonial American cemeteries.
The Urn and Willow
The defining motif of the Federal period — the draped urn of mourning beside the weeping willow of grief.
The Broken Column
A life cut short. The broken column was reserved for those who died young or in their prime, a life interrupted mid-sentence.
The Cradle Grave
A small raised enclosure, often of brick or stone, marking the grave of an infant or young child.
The Tree-Stump Marker
A Woodmen of the World tradition — the carved stone tree stump, symbol of a life felled before its time.
The Fieldstone
The oldest and most humble marker — an uncut stone placed by hand, often the only record of a life in the poorest burial grounds.
The Box Tomb
A chest-shaped monument of considerable presence. Common in Southern churchyard cemeteries for prominent families.
Availability
Pricing, format, edition size, and shipping details are being confirmed. This page will be updated when the collection is ready to order. Society members will receive advance notice.
Join the Society for early noticeA Cemetery Journal series
Stories in Stone
Each piece in this collection has a story behind it — in the history of the form, the symbolism it carries, and the communities that chose it. The Stories in Stone series explores those histories in depth.
The Language of Form: What Gravestone Shapes Tell Us About the People Beneath Them
Coming soonThe Urn and the Willow: Tracing America's Most Beloved Mourning Motif
Coming soonFieldstones and Forgotten Names: Preservation, Poverty, and the Unmarked Dead
Coming soon