A very rare French early 19th century death mask. These macabre masks were realised in plaster and were actual moulds taken from the body before the advent of photography. Sometimes they would be taken of famous individuals to maintain a record of their faces after death in order to continue depicting them accurately but most commonly, during the 18th and 19th centuries masks were also used to permanently record the features of unknown corpses for the purposes of identification. This function was later replaced by post-mortem photography.

Condition: very good

Dimensions: 35cm high approximately