Factual Friday
By Charlie Elphinstone
Death masks, a macabre form of art but nevertheless interesting …
Death masks have been around for thousands of years. These plaster or wax cast likenesses of a deceased individual have been used for all sorts of things . One reason would be to be placed inside the tomb of the deceased, this practice was used in ancient Egypt.
Other uses of death masks include using them as an effigy during the funeral and using them to make statues of the deceased at a later date.
Death masks of unknown people were kept in the hopes of identifying them at a later date and then this practice was replaced with post mortem photography.
It wasn’t until the 1800s that death masks were valued by themselves and seen as a form of art.
Interestingly one of the most expensive death masks ever sold belonged to Pharaoh Tutankhamun which sold for
2 million dollars at auction.
Some famous people that had death masks made of them include Mary Queen of Scots, Napoleon Bonaparte,
Michael Collins,
John Dillinger,
Sir Isaac Newton,
Admiral Horatio Nelson,
William Shakespeare,
Oliver Cromwell,
Ludwig Van Beethoven,
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
‘Death Mask’
Vintage plaster sculpture by Scottish artist Rona Johnstone 1957. £185.00
H12” W8”
Ref/14855
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