You know how it goes. You stumble across an image that knocks you out, follow it to its source, and then spend three hours freebasing on the most amazing blog you've seen in a long time.
That's what happened to me when I ran across this image and followed it to John Foster's vernacular arts and ephemera blog, Accidental Mysteries.
Then I read this completely gripping account (Parts I and II) of his adventure tracking down a set of portraits said to be from the State Lunatic Asylum in Nevada Missouri. Dating between 1895 and 1900, the drawings were supposedly rendered by an artist who called himself "The Electric Pencil." Foster's wonderful narrative of his mad dash to procure the mysterious collection sight unseen reads like a literary thriller in the vein of A.S. Byatt.
Several hours of blog stalking later, I'm still haunted by those eyes. All images from the wonderful Accidental Mysteries.