Death masks have been used for centuries; the ancient Egyptians often placed a death mask on a corpse after mummification. The famous gold death mask of Agamemnon was discovered at Mycenae, Greece, in 1876 and is believed to have been created between 1550 and 1500 BC. Later, death masks became more popular due to the creation of the pseudo-science of phrenology. Phrenology was developed in the late 18th and early 19th century by Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. They believed you could learn about a person’s character, personality and emotions simply from the lumps and bumps on their head. They often cast masks, usually from plaster, of criminals to see the phrenology-based diagnosis. I found some of the most intriguing ones: a wonderful collection of murderers, geniuses and the man who kept his wife’s skull in his house…
I will begin with the executions at Newgate Prison, London, England. Several people were hanged outside of the prison, and after they died, death masks were cast and displayed in a macabre gallery. Charles Dickens visited in 1836 and noted, ‘A shelf, on which were a few boxes for papers, and casts of the heads and faces of the two notorious murderers, Bishop and Williams; the former, in particular, exhibiting a style of head and set of features, which might have afforded sufficient moral grounds for his instant execution at any time, even had there been no other evidence against him’. These are some of the death masks that were created and are now on display at London’s Crime Museum:
Thomas Wicks
Thomas was 20 years old and was an apprentice to James Bostock, a brass finisher. In a fit of revenge (I’m unsure for what), Thomas shot James dead and was caught that evening. He was sentenced to death and executed on 30th March 1846.
James Greenacre
James was engaged to Hannah Brown; however, he was only interested in her money and also had a mistress. He was caught when Hannah’s head was found in Regent’s Canal. James admitted to the murder and described to the courts how he had removed and scattered her limbs. He was executed on 2nd May 1837; he was hanged by William Calcraft, known to use a short drop. This meant it took his victims a lot longer to die as the rope would strangle them rather than break their necks. William Calcraft was also the executioner in the Christina Collins case.
Daniel Good
Daniel was a coachman who was having a secret affair with Jane Jones. He was questioned at work about a theft, and his employers asked a local constable to help search for the stolen property. Instead of the goods, the constable found a woman's torso in the stable; they later found her limbs in the remains of a fire. Daniel had killed Jane after discovering she was pregnant. He was executed on 23rd May 1842.
Luigi Buranelli
Luigi rented a room from a boarding house landlord, Joseph Lambert. Joseph had an issue with his tenants sleeping with each other despite being guilty of this himself. Luigi was caught sleeping with the woman in the room next door to him, and Joseph told them both to leave the property. They obliged, but the next day, Luigi returned and shot Joseph while he was in bed with his mistress. Luigi then turned the gun on himself but survived his injuries, leaving him to be executed on 30th April 1855.
Robert Noel
University College London has 37 disembodied plaster heads in a box. Most of them are death masks, although some were created whilst the person was alive; the ones cast in death tend to have sunken eyes, gaping mouths and, sometimes, the imprints from their cause of death. They originally belonged to Robert Noel, a phrenologist who collected them between 1837 and 1850, and he kept them in two categories: Intellectuals and Criminals/Suicides (a definite view into how they saw mental health issues back then). Not all of them have been identified, but these are a few that caught my attention:
Carl Gottlob Irmscher – Criminals/Suicides
Carl’s wife was in tremendous debt that she kept hidden from her husband; she also consistently accused him of having affairs ‘despite his ugliness’ (Noel’s words, not mine!). Unsurprisingly, this eventually caused serious issues between the couple, and Carl finally broke down. He drowned their sickly son and killed his wife by attacking her with an axe. Carl told authorities she had fallen, but it’s not very often that you will fall repeatedly on an axe. He was executed.
Phrenology Diagnosis – a tendency to be proud, overbearing and malicious.
Johann Hatschwanz – Criminals/Suicides
Johann was having an affair in 1850; he and his lover were married to other people. He murdered his wife by poisoning her with arsenic, hoping that his lover would kill her husband and they could finally be together. She didn’t go through with it, and Johann was convicted of murder. He was executed.
Phrenology Diagnosis – Egotistical, lack of love for children and animals.
Christian Gottlieb Meyer – Criminals/Suicides
Christian went through a family breakdown and turned to drinking, which became full-blown alcoholism. Authorities wanted to remove his three children and place them in an institution. Christian decided they would be better ‘in heaven’ and threw them down a mineshaft to their deaths. He died whilst in prison.
Phrenology Diagnosis – Showed no criminal tendencies.
Johanne Rehn – Criminals/Suicides
Johanne met a soldier, and he soon became a new love interest. She was worried that her daughter's presence would put off her would-be lover, so she threw the child into a cesspit. The post-mortem report showed that the child suffocated in human waste. She was found guilty and sentenced to death by beheading; it took the executioner three times to fully decapitate her, and the wounds, where he hit her head by accident, are visible on the death mask.
Phrenology Diagnosis – Lack of love for children
Doctor Johann Paul von Falkenstein – Intellectual
Doctor Johann was a politician and lawyer; Robert Noel met him in 1833 and took a living mask of him. 12 years later, Doctor Johann had a breakdown and ended up in an ‘idiotic state in the lunatic asylum’.
Phrenology Diagnosis – Knowledgeable, benevolent, good with language.
Doctor August Friedrich Gunther – Intellectual
Robert Noel met Doctor August in 1833 when the doctor showed him a private collection of 30 human skulls he owned. In 1839, a cast was taken of his face while he was still alive. After the doctor’s wife died, he removed her head and kept her skull in his collection.
Phrenology Diagnosis – Love for children, benevolence, destructiveness.
Julius Shonberg – Intellectual
Julius was born in 1837, and by age two, he was considered a musical genius. He died in 1842, but nothing more is known about the child.
The following death masks are a collection of people whose stories I found rather interesting:
William Burke and William Hare
Burke and Hare were notorious murderers; they supplied bodies to medical schools for dissection but decided it was easier to kill people than grave robbing for corpses. They are believed to have killed 16 people in Edinburgh, Scotland, during 1828. Burke was hanged on the 28th of January 1829, and his corpse was publicly dissected on the 1st of February. His skeleton is displayed at Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh, next to his death mask. We don’t know what happened to Hare, but there is a ‘life mask’ of him.
Dante Alighieri
Dante was a famous philosopher and poet in the 1300s. Dante fell out of favour with the Black Guelphs, a political faction of the time, and was exiled. While exiled, he wrote his epic work ‘The Divine Comedy’. He contracted malaria and passed away in 1320. There are debates as to whether the death mask is real or not.
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary ruled in Scotland between 1542 and 1567 when she was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son. She failed to regain the throne, so she ran away to seek help from her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Many English Catholics believed Mary to be the legitimate ruler of England, and, in the past, Mary had tried to claim the throne for her own. Elizabeth imprisoned her for 18 years before finally sentencing her to death for plotting the queen's assassination. Mary was beheaded, the first blow hitting her head and the second decapitating her. Disturbingly, it was reported that her lips continued to move for 15 minutes after her death.
The Inconnue de la Seine
The last death mask I will write about is one you have probably seen up close and personal without even realising it—the Inconnue de la Seine – The Unknown Woman of the Seine. The story goes that in the late 19th century, the body of a young woman was found in the River Seine in Northern France. Her body was displayed at the Paris mortuary in the hope that someone, somewhere, may recognise her and help identify her. The pathologist was intrigued by this young lady and found someone to create a death mask for her face. It didn’t take long before the man who had cast the mask was selling replicas, and many people had this young lady’s death mask hanging in their house. She was a source of mystery and enigma, inspiring writers, poets and artists. In 1899, Richard le Gallienne wrote the novella ‘The Worshipper of the Image’; the story is based around the death mask being a source of evil that bewitches and eventually destroys a young poet.
It was in 1955 that Asmund Laerdal rescued his young son, Tore, from drowning. He dragged his seemingly lifeless body from the water and successfully resuscitated him. Asmund was a toy maker who specialised in making children’s dolls. He was approached to create a training aid for cardiopulmonary resuscitation – CPR – a technique which hadn’t been around long. Due to his previous experience with his son, Asmund was eager to help as much as possible. The training aid was designed as a torso and a head; Asmund wanted to make the training aid appear female. He remembered a mask on his grandparent’s wall and modelled the doll’s face on her; the mask was the Inconnue de la Seine. In her death, this anonymous woman became famous worldwide; replicas are still used, and she is known as Resusci Anne. If you have been trained in CPR, chances are you’ve had your lips pressed to one of the most famous death mask replicas.
And those are just a very few death masks from throughout the ages. I have to say, I quite like them. There’s something very intriguing about them, and they introduced me to many stories I had no idea about. As always, please let me know what you think in the comments, take care of yourself, and I will see you soon!
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