9 Allegedly Haunted Paintings — And The Disturbing True Stories Behind Them

Published October 23, 2023
Updated August 7, 2024

Death And The Child, A Chilling Creation By A Tortured Artist

Death And The Child

Edvard MunchEdvar Munch’s life was filled with death ever since he was a child.

Edvard Munch is perhaps best known for his famous piece The Scream, but it is another one of his works that many people believe to be haunted. This piece, Death and the Child, depicts the tragic moment in which a young girl discovers her mother dead in a bed.

Some have claimed that the eyes of the child follow them as they move about the room. This, however, can be attributed to a fairly common painting technique. In truth, much of the reason why many consider this painting to be haunted is due to the tragic circumstances of its painter.

As Kunsthalle Bremen wrote for Google Arts & Culture, Edvard Munch had to grapple with death from a very young age. His mother passed away when he was just six years old, and his sister died a few years later. When his father died in 1889, Munch fell into a deep personal crisis.

Near the end of his life, he wrote of his childhood: “My home was the home of illness and death. I have never gotten over the calamity there. It has also influenced my art.”

The themes of death and grief are pervasive throughout Munch’s work, but Death and the Child is widely regarded to be one of his most searing portrayals of grief. The painting focuses solely on the young girl’s pain — and perhaps, for some viewers, it is simply too much to handle.

author
Austin Harvey
author
A staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2022, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid, covering topics including history, and sociology. He has published more than 1,000 pieces, largely covering modern history and archaeology. He is a co-host of the History Uncovered podcast as well as a co-host and founder of the Conspiracy Realists podcast. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Point Park University. He is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
Based in Brooklyn, New York, John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of expertise include modern American history and the ancient Near East. In an editing career spanning 17 years, he previously served as managing editor of Elmore Magazine in New York City for seven years.
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Harvey, Austin. "9 Allegedly Haunted Paintings — And The Disturbing True Stories Behind Them." AllThatsInteresting.com, October 23, 2023, https://allthatsinteresting.com/haunted-paintings. Accessed August 2, 2025.