The closed eyes and uncannily peaceful expressions of death masks are frozen in time, and show us a side of royalty, of military and political masters, of profound thinkers and artists, and of the everyday public that are long past and largely unknowable.
Death masks – casts of a deceased person’s face taken to preserve their image – give us an impression of history that no written description, bust, or painting can provide. They offered a final viewing of the deceased and commemorated their legacies. Paradoxically, death masks serve to breathe life into the dead.
High profile and historic faces still continue to fascinate the public, as revealed during a recent auction at Bonhams. In 2013, the famous British auction house sold the death mask of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for £170,000 ($260,000).
Death mask of Napoleon Bonaparte. One of only two plaster death masks of Napoleon Bonaparte remaining in private hands. The death mask was made by surgeon Francis Burton of Britain’s Sixty-Sixth Regiment of Foot on May 7th, 1821, two days after Napoleon’s death on St. Helena. ( Trustees of The British Museum / CC by SA 4.0)
Wax copy of Oliver Cromwell’s death mask taken after the body had been embalmed. ( Trustees of the British Museum / CC by SA 4.0). Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658 AD) was a notorious English commander and politician, who is regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He remains a deeply controversial figure in…
