Death masks and life masks at Edinburgh University

M H Kaufman, Robert McNeil

One of the undoubted successes of the 1988 Edinburghfestival fringe was the exhibition "Death masks and lifemasks of the famous and infamous" organised byEdinburgh University's department of anatomy inconjunction with Scotland's cultural heritage unit.Where did these masks come from, why and how werethey made, and for whom were they made?The more "recent" history of the death mask can be

traced back to 1444, the year in which St Bernardino ofSienna died. A wax mask (probably the earliest still inexistence) was taken of his-face to be used on an effigythat lay in state for 26 days after his death. Thispractice of having effigies lie in state also developed inEngland and France. These effigies were of wood (inEngland) or wickerwork (in France) embellished withwax features. The casts for the death masks had nointrinsic value, being simply aids to the effigy makersin their wax reconstruction of the dead person's face.The death in 1793 of Jean-Paul Marat (fig 1),

who had given up medical practice to prosecutethe revolution, was one of the last occasions onwhich a death mask was taken as an aid to makingan effigy. This was on the initiative of the painter andrevolutionary, Jacques Louis David, who suggestedit as an alternative to public display of the corpse(Marat had suffered from a disfiguring skin diseasecontracted while hiding in the sewers of Paris beforethe revolution, and his mortal remains were deemednot to be an edifying sight). On Marat's mask a lineacross the face can clearly be seen where a thread in theplaster was lifted, and this gives us a clue to the makingof a mask. George Kolbe, a master of the art, left thisaccount (abridged and amended here):

I lay the head low in the line of exact equilibrium so as to avoidcompressing and displacing the relaxed muscles and skin.The eyelids and lips are gently closed, the chin is propped,and so on. The hair is combed smooth and, along with partswhere hair is growing on the face, painted over with a thinsolution of modelling clay or with oil, so that the plaster may

not aurtere when it is poured over. The skin itself containsenough fat and needs no preparation. The outline of the mask,the parts on the neck, behind the ears, and so on, aresurrounded with the thinnest of damp paper. A large bowl ofplaster of the consistency of soup is ladled over the face a fewmillimetres in thickness; then a thread is drawn over themiddle of the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the mouth andchin. A second bowl of more solid plaster is spread over thefirst layer like pulp (to provide a firm outer shell), and before itsets the thread is drawn away, dividing the whole into twohalves. As soon as the outer layer has set hard, the halvedmould is broken apart and carefully detached from the head.The halves thus detached are immediately fitted togetheragain.

This provides the "negative" mould from which anaccurate "positive" can then be prepared. Kolbeemphasised the importance of being called out quicklybefore the blood cooled and the features becamestiffened: "How often I have been told that thedead man had been so beautiful-but now he is sorepulsive." In the death mask of Coleridge (fig 2) thefinal spasm of a stroke remains on his face (in thedownward turn of one side of the mouth), uniquely, ifunattractively, recorded for posterity. Fortunately wealso have a life mask of Coleridge, which is much moredignified.Having a life mask made could not have been a

comfortable operation. The process was essentially thesame as that described above for a death mask with theimportant proviso that quills or straws were insertedinto the nostrils so that the subject could breathe. Whyundergo this unpleasant experience? The reasonmay have been vanity, curiosity, or fashion. Themask makers were artists, and in the days beforephotography this was the best way to achieve anaccurate likeness free from the licence of portraiture orsculpture. The life mask of Keats, cast by Haydon; wasgifted to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds shortlybefore the poet went to Rome, where he died oftuberculosis at the age of 25. Notable sculptors

FIG 1-Death mask ofJean-PaulMarat (1743-93) FIG 2-Death mask ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge, with left FIG 3-Death mask ofJohn Linn, a murderer executed insidedfacial palsy (1772-1834) 1836, showing evidence ofpossible repaired bilateral hare

lip

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Department of Anatomy,University Medical School,Edinburgh University,Edinburgh EH8 9AGM H Kaufman, DSC, professorRobert McNeil, BA,researcher

Correspondence to:Professor Kaufman.

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FIG 4-Death mask ofJ3oseph Fieschi, who was executed FIG S-Mask ofhydrocephalic adult FIG 6-Mask ofmicrocephalic uomanin 1836, showing shrapnel wounds to head

who practised the art of mask making includedRoubilliac, who made the mask of Sir Isaac Newton,and Turnerelli, an Italian sculptor living in London,who created a mask of Jeremy Bentham.

Death masks thus have a long historical tradition, asaids to sculpture and effigy making or as objects ofreverence in themselves. Most extant masks date fromthe nineteenth century, the century that saw thedevelopment of a pseudoscientific movement,phrenology, which played an important part inamassing masks and busts into special collections.Phrenologists had an obvious interest in death masksand busts as one of their fundamental beliefs was that aspecial relation existed between facial features, theshape of the head, and human personality. They madecollections for "educational" purposes of masks andbusts not only of the famous but also of the infamous.Masks were made of criminals shortly after hanging aswell as people of various racial derivations.

Examples ofall ofthese types ofmask are to be foundin the Henderson Trust collection at EdinburghUniversity. The collection was originally housed in themuseum of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society,and subsequently transferred to the department ofanatomy. The existing collection numbers just over300 items. By the mid-1880s the collection, consistingof 600 or more items, was generally considered to bethe most valuable of its kind in the United Kingdom.Now it is believed to be one of the largest collectionsstill in existence in the world (other smaller groups arehoused at Princeton University, New Jersey, UnitedStates; the Castle Museum, Norwich; the BlackMuseum, Scotland Yard; and the Dundee Art Galleryand Museum).The quality of the masks varies widely. Some are

quite superb and clearly the work of professionalsculptors. That of Dr Johnson was made under thedirection of his medical attendant, Dr Cruikshanks,who later said that the mask was a remarkably correctlikeness. Other masks are more bland, but each tells astory. The.physical realities are there to be seen: SirWalter Scott's remarkably high forehead; the wart onSheridan's right cheek; the hare lips of murderer JohnLinn (fig 3); and the shrapnel riddled head of JosephFieschi (fig 4), whose specially made contraption toassassinate the French monarch, Louis Philippe, blewup in his face. Fieschi survived but was executed in1836.The life and death masks of the notorious murderer

William Burke and the life mask of his accomplice,

William Hare, are also in the collection, thoughpossibly two of the most memorable and poignantitems are the life and death masks of John Any BirdBell, a baby faced youth of 14 who was executed in1831 for the particularly savage murder ofanother boy.As a consequence of the "scientific" ethos of the

Edinburgh Phrenological Society the masks of peoplewith various medical conditions or unusual physicalfeatures were collected. These include cases ofhydrocephaly (fig 5) and microcephaly and a curiousfamily of six (a mother, her sister, and four of herchildren) all with remarkably similar, rSildlygrotesque, microcephalic features (fig 6).

Apart from the masks of the famous, such as SirWalter Scott, Sir Isaac Newton, Sheridan, Keats,Friedrich Schiller, and Mendelssohn, and infamous,such as Burke, Hare, and Fieschi, the originalcollection contained casts of the intact skulls and brainsof many species of animals and birds as well as areference and lending library containing an importantcollection of works of anatomical, sociological, andphrenological interest. Much of the last group,regrettably, has been dispersed, but it is hoped that atleast some of the more interesting items that remainwill once more be put on display for the benefit ofscholars and other interested parties.

We thank S Garrad and J Cable for photographic help.

I Benkard E. Undyingfaces. London: Hogarth Press, 1929.

ANY QUESTIONSDo calcium antagonists cause hypokalaemia?

A small fall in the serum potassium concentration hasbeen reported with nifedipine in patients treated with athiazide diuretic. ' There has also been at least one reportof hypokalaemia in a patient receiving nifedipinealone.2 The frequency with which this occurs and themechanism are unknown. Nifedipine may enhanceurinary potassium loss in patients taking diuretics, or itmight cause potassium to shift from the extracellularto the intracellular space.3 I am not aware of anyconvincing evidence for either mechanism. -LINDABEELEY, consultant clinical pharmacologist, BirminghamI Murphy MB, Scriven AJI, Dollery CT. Role of nifedipine in treatment

of hypertension. BrMedJ 1983;287:257-9.2 Tishler M, Armon S. Nifedipine-induced hypokalaemia. DrugIntell Clin

Phanm 1986;20:370-1.3 Struthers AD, Reid JL. Nifedipine does not influence adrenaline

induced hypokalaemia in man. BrT Clin Pharnacol 1983;16:342-3.

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