Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).
Image: Imagno/Getty Images
While decorative funeral masks have been used to adorn the dead since ancient times, from those gracing Tutankhamen to Agamemnon, death masks record the very contours of a person’s face at the time of their death.
Ancient sculpted masks were supplanted in the late Middle Ages by true death masks, which are created by making a wax or plaster cast of a person’s face shortly after their death.
Death masks were made to preserve the visages of royal and otherwise notable people, from kings and conquerors to authors, composers and poets.
The haunting likenesses could then be used to create a sculpture or portrait, aid the scientific study of physiognomy or even help loved ones identify a body.
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727).
Image: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images
Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805).
Image: The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658).
Image: The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images
A mask believed to be of William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
Image: Fritz Eschen/ullstein bild via Getty Images
A mask believed to be of William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
Image: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).
Image: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Martin Luther (1483-1546).
Image: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).
Image: Imagno/Getty Images
John Keats (1795-1821).
Image: Culture Club/Getty Images
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
Image: ullstein bild via Getty Images
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).
Image: ullstein bild via Getty Images
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821).
Image: PHAS/UIG via Getty Images
Franz Liszt (1811-1886).
Image: Fritz Eschen/ullstein bild via Getty Images
William Blake (1757 - 1827).
Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).
Image: Fritz Eschen / ullstein bild via Getty Images
James Joyce (1882-1941).
Image: Alain Le Garsmeur/Corbis via Getty Images
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).
Image: Bettmann/Getty Images
Cosima Wagner (1837-1930).
Image: Heinrich Hoffmann/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492).
Image: The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).
Image: Imagno/Getty Images
Mary Queen Of Scots (1542-1587).
Image: RDImages/Epics/Getty Images
-
Curation:
-
Text:
MORE FROM RETRONAUT
Kindertransport: A desperate effort to save children from the Holocaust
The old-school lumberjacks who felled giant trees with axes
Antique mourning jewelry contained the hair of the deceased
Rosie the Riveter IRL: Meet the women who built WWII planes
The streets of 1970s New York City: A decade of urban decay
35 years ago, grief at the scene of John Lennon's murder
This WWII women's dorm was the hippest spot in town
Rarely seen images from the Walt Disney Archives
White sand, black gold: When oil derricks loomed over California beaches
Chicago in ruins: The unimaginable aftermath of the Great Fire of 1871
If Google Street View existed in 1911
Before the Holocaust, Nazis targeted so-called 'Gypsies'