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Death Masks Of The Famous

skinny

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This site, The Laurence Hutton Collection of Life and Death Masks, exposes the faces of many historical figures in a way that portraiture fails to capture. Those who were photographed, such as Lincoln, don't need their mortal images confirmed. However those who lived prior to photography are given a new lease of life, as it were, by the plaster casting of their faces immediately after death, or well after death (as in the case of skulls e.g. Robert I of Scotland) or in life (life masks). I get a real sense of their personal character in the faces represented, and, prompted to do some shallow research on Wikipedia, discovered many I had never heard of before. I wish there were more.

Link: http://library.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/C0770/index.html

Sample: Oliver Cromwell

ex65.jpg


If you have any other sites such as this, please link them here.
 
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I live near Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich and I seem to recall it having John Constable's death mask. Couldn't find it last time I went though.
 
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I'm pretty sure that Walmer castle in Kent has the death mask of Wellington along with his famous boots.
 
This wax replica of Swedish king Gustaf III's death mask is rather creepy, I think, It was up for auction recently but didn't sell (can't understand why...)

gustavlll.se/#0.2
Link is dead. Website is MIA. No archived version found.
The replica mentioned here can't be identified on the Web. Here's a photo of the original.


c89325900ecd8f209f1a3aa7afdc9659.jpg


A portrait of the man, for comparison: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Sweden.jpg
 
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Oh yeah, that is creepy.
 
Another good collection here
Link is dead, and the website is MIA. The MIA webpage (with photos) can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/2015121....com:80/life-and-death-masks-of-famous-people

A good topic that I did not notice when it first appeared.

I remember reading that many so-called death-masks are indeed life-masks, which were very painful to sit for - so the wincing expression was not necessarily a death-pang.

Both a life and death mask of Beethoven is given on that page and I don't recall ever having seen the wasted-looking death-mask before. Nor had I seen Alfred Hitchcock's death-mask.

I am not very convinced by the Shakespeare example, though.

For the record the page contains:
Hitchcock, Napoleon, Lenin, Lincoln, Newton, Beethoven, Nobel, Keats, Tolstoy, Himmler, Franklin, Joyce, 'Shakespeare', Washington, Dilinger & L'inconnue de la Seine.

Very haunting. :)
 
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Saw some in the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg a year or so ago, must have a look through my snaps for them.
 
... I remember reading that many so-called death-masks are indeed life-masks, which were very painful to sit for - so the wincing expression was not necessarily a death-pang. ...

Yes ... It is unfortunately common for life masks to be presented on the Web mislabeled as death masks.

... Nor had I seen Alfred Hitchcock's death-mask. ...

Since you mentioned it, here's Hitchcock's death mask.

hitcock.jpg
 
Wonderful thread. Dante's looks idealised - either that or he looked like a cartoon character in real life.

I saw a very affecting exhibition somewhere in the Mississippi Delta about 7 years ago which was hundreds of death masks of slaves - I can't find anything about it online.
 
Here's a digital reconstruction derived from Henry VII's death mask.

HenryVII-Reconstruction.jpg

Death mask of King Henry VII is brought to astonishing life in a digital restoration

The somber face of Britain's King Henry VII was recently given a digital makeover, in an astonishingly photorealistic reconstruction.

Graphic artist Matt Loughrey produced the image of the deceased king from Henry VII's death mask, which was cast in 1509. Loughrey is the founder of My Colorful Past, a project that restores and colorizes archival images of historic figures. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/henry-vii-reconstruction-death-mask.html
 
That must have been pretty grim making the death mask of someone who had been beheaded and badly beheaded at that.

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, was beheaded (again rather messily) in the Tower of London in 1685 for treason after his failed attempt to secure the throne. The story goes that immediately afterwards it was realised that as an illegitimate son of Charles II he was entitled to have his portrait painted.

So his head was sewn back onto his body and his corpse was propped up so the official Court artist could dash off a likeness. The result is said to give a 'detached' effect.
 
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, was beheaded (again rather messily) in the Tower of London in 1685 for treason after his failed attempt to secure the throne. The story goes that immediately afterwards it was realised that as an illegitimate son of Charles II he was entitled to have his portrait painted.

So his head was sewn back onto his body and his corpse was propped up so the official Court artist could dash off a likeness. The result is said to give a 'detached' effect.

Poor Monmouth he just picked the wrong time. King Billy got it right.
 
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