Undying Faces ®

Enrico Caruso Museum in Brooklyn, NY contains the death mask of Enrico Caruso, which was done at the time of his death. Only three copies are known to exist in the world.  www.enricocarusomuseum.com  I am unable to locate pictures of this mask…

“New York circa 1908. Making a plaster death mask. View full size. 8×10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.”

Credit for this and many excellent historical photos, visit:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/3430

It is well known that a death mask was made of Che Guevara.  I can find no information on the location or pictures…

Location: Imperial War Museum, London

Death Mask

Info: Wikipedia entry for Heinrich Himmler

Death Mask

Info: Alfred Hitchcock Wikipedia Entry

Info: Alfred Hitchcock IMDB Entry

Death Mask

Info: Dr. Timothy Leary Wikipedia Entry

Death Mask

Info: Alban Berg Wikipedia Entry

Death Mask

Location:  Edison Lab Museum at Menlow Park, NJ

Can’t locate a picture of the mask…

Death Mask

Info: Rommel Wikipedia Entry

Founder of the De Beers Diamond Company

Death Mask

From the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia.

See:  www.tokencoins.com/bbp.htm

Above photo from “The Pen and the Spindle” Blog:

http://penandspindle.blogspot.com/2008/06/missing-death-mask-of-cecil-rhodes.html

Wikipedia Entry for Cecil Rhodes

The death mask is now missing from the museum…

Death Mask

From RoadSideAmerica.com - Death Mask in a Bread & Breakfast in East Liverpool, OH

See link here:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10968

Pretty Boy Floyd’s Wikipedia entry

Death Mask

See this web page for photo and info

Death Mask

Death mask (2 copies?), reconstructed from the original by Vladimir Fortunato. See Museum Objects Information File. [Tower Room]

Death Mask

Life Mask

Location: Nikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade.

Location: British Museum London

Wikipedia entry for Friedrich Ebert

FRIEDRICH EBERT, the first President of the German Republic, freely elected by the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, was born on February 4, 1871, at Heidelberg, and died in Berlin, from the effects of an operation, on February 28, 1925. His death mask, taken by the sculptor Georg Kolbe of Berlin, is in the possession of the President’s widow.Friedrich Ebert was the son of simple parents, and himself formerly a skilled saddler, so that he belonged to the artisan class. He soon became a zealous worker in the Social-Democratic party (beginning his activities in 1892) and was made its President in 1913. At the time of the collapse of 1918, and in the Revolution, he so far made his mark that he was finally called upon to assume the highest office that the German people have it in their power to confer. His work as President is still fresh in the memory of all. A reflective spirit of moderation and a remarkable sense of justice made him the opponent of all extremist tendencies, so that he countered their influence in the Revolution. It is thanks to Ebert that the foundation was laid upon which Germany’s shattered social structure was consolidated. How far his endeavours paved the way–unintentionally, without doubt–for the bourgeois large-scale capitalism of today, is a question which must be left to history to decide.Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Wikipedia entry for Lenin

VLADIMIR ILYICH ULYANOV LENIN, “who gave himself the name of Lenin, was born at Simbirsk on April 10, 1870. He was the son of a small landowner. He died after a long and painful illness on January 21, 1924, at Gorkii near Moscow, as First People’s Commissary of the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic. He took part at an early age in Russia’s revolutionary movement and was exiled to Siberia in 1897; he fled abroad, reappeared in the Revolution of 1905, and was once more a refugee in 1907, living and working in London, Germany, and Switzerland. From the time of his arrival in Russia in 1917 this ex-barrister and agitator compelled his people and the whole world to attend to his words.”

“The death mask was taken a few hours after Lenin’s death by the sculptor Merkurov and is kept in the Lenin Institute in Moscow. His mausoleum in the Red Square in Moscow is something equivalent to the caaba of Bolshevism. (Fritz Schotthofer: Lenin dc’r Mcnsch, Frankfurter Zeitung, January 25, 1924; Valeriu Marcu: Lenin, Leipzig, 1927.)”

Wikipedia entry for Richard Dehmel

RICHARD DEHMEL.–Of all recent German lyric poetry, his is the most pregnant with thought. He was bom on November 18, 1863, at Wendisch - Hermsdorf, and died on February 8, 1920, at Blankenese. The death mask was taken by the sculptor Professor Richard Luksch of the Hamburg School of Arts and Crafts. It is kept in the Dehmelhaus. (From information kindly supplied by Mrs. Ida Dehmel.) Photograph by Duhrkoop, Hamburg.

Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Wikipedia entry for Frank Wedekind

FRANK WEDEKIND.–”I regard Wedekind as the greatest and most forceful creative artist of our day; he is perhaps the only man, and that not in Germany alone, who really has something new to say and says it in a new way” (Worringer).Wedekind was bom in Hanover on July 24, 1864, and died in Munich on March 9, 1918. The death mask was taken on the day following the artist’s death by the Munich moulder Hans Zoller; the original is in the possession of Wedekind’s widow. In addition to various casts in the hands of Wedekind’s friends and admirers, we must mention the specimen in the Munich Theatrical Museum. Mrs. Tilly Wedekind writes of the mask in a letter: “It is wonderful and touching to me to see how every trace of suffering and bitterness has vanished from the face, and the expression is smiling and peaceful, a little ironical and exalted above all earthly things.” Photograph by Genthe, Leipzig.Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Wikipedia entry for Max Reger

MAX REGER, whose ponderous figure we still seem to see before us at the piano or on the conductor’s platform, was born on March 19, 1873, at Brand in Bavaria, and died on a visit to Leipzig on May n, 1916. The Weimar sculptor Professor Richard Engelmann, a friend of the composer, who happened to be in Leipzig, took the death mask and still has it in his possession.Professor Engelmann writes about the taking of the mask: “On the morning of May 11 I was visiting Klinger’s studio in Leipzig. I found him deeply depressed. In the course of our conversation he asked me whether I had heard of Roger’s death. I was deeply affected, for I was bound to Reger by ties of friendship, and I hastened to the little hotel near by, where I found Mrs. Reger. The dead man himself was lying in a little room, with a wonderful and radiantly peaceful look on his face. On a little table beside him was a sheet of music in his own handwriting. The good state of preservation and the remarkable beauty of the face suggested the taking of a mask, and this was of peculiar interest to me because Reger had already arranged with me to model his bust early in June. I quickly succeeded in finding a moulder, and towards midday moulds had been taken of the mask and both hands. All three have since been kept in my studio. Whilst I was engaged in the work I was particularly struck by the remarkably beautiful modelling of the forehead and eye-sockets in comparison with the powerful formation of the lower half of the face. The bust, which I modelled from memory with the help of the mask, is of Untersberg marble. It is in the Municipal Museum at Nuremberg.”Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Wikipedia entry for Gustav Mahler

GUSTAV MAHLER.–”The immediate sensation created by the mask is one of astonishment at the expression of a powerful will still stamped upon the dead face (the mouth). Only gradually do we come to feel the fascination of a singularly honest and lucid brow, and to appreciate the rugged modeling of the nose. Since the eyes are forever closed, we can discern little of the lofty human kindliness or the fun which were such essential traits of Mahler’s character. In profile there is a remarkable likeness to Josef Haydn’s death mask; compare Plate <36>.”

“Gustav Mahler was born in Kalischt near Iglau, in what was formerly German Bohemia, on July 7, 1860; he was the son of a moderately prosperous Jewish merchant family. At fifteen he entered the Vienna Conservatoire and became a pupil of Epstein; his talent and his performance left no room for doubt, even then, that music for him was not merely a profession but a vocation. During years of unsettled wandering he went to Hall (in Upper Austria), Laibach, Olmutz, Cassel, and finally to Prague (1885), where he made his first appearance, under Angelo Neumann, as a conductor of opera and of concerts before a large public. After a brief and successful engagement in Leipzig, he secured an independent post as chief producer of opera in Budapest. Between 1891 and 1897 he celebrated his great triumphs in the Hamburg municipal theatre under Pollini. This led finally to his engagement at the Viennese court opera house, which he graced till 1907. Misunderstandings and lack of appreciation drove him to America that year; there he conducted as a guest during the brief span of life that still remained to him, but returned from time to time to his native Germany for work and recuperation. He broke down in New York in consequence of treacherous heart trouble, and was taken through Paris to Vienna, where he died in a sanatorium on May 18, 1911. That same day his friend, the painter Kari Moll, took the death mask; casts are in the possession of the master’s widow, Mrs. Alma Maria Mahler, and of Professor Moll.”

Wikipedia entry for Josef Kainz (translated from German)

JOSEF KAINZ.–The finished art of this great and memorable actor of classic parts is still fresh in the minds of a generation now past middle life. He was born on January 2, 1858, at Wieselburg in Hungary, and died of cancer on September 20, 1910, in Vienna. The death mask was moulded by the Viennese actor, Otto Tressler, and is in the Municipal Collections in the Vienna Town Hall.

JOSEF KAINZ.–The finished art of this great and memorable actor of classic parts is still fresh in the minds of a generation now past middle life. He was born on January 2, 1858, at Wieselburg in Hungary, and died of cancer on September 20, 1910, in Vienna. The death mask was moulded by the Viennese actor, Otto Tressler, and is in the Municipal Collections in the Vienna Town Hall.

Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Wikipedia entry for Bjornstjerne Bjornson

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON was born on December 8, 1832, at Kvikne (Osterdesen), so that he was four years younger than his great rival Ibsen. But whilst Ibsen brooded in solitude, calling himself and his fellows to account, Bjornson, with a not dissimilar outlook, always regarded the world and its innermost being with democratic optimism. Not only is he still familiar to us as a dramatist of the naturalist school, he is also a lyric poet of peculiar delicacy, to whom his Norwegian fatherland owes the unique quality of its national anthem. Nor must we forget, lastly, the combative temperament which inspired him as a journalist and agitator on behalf of a Norwegian republic. Bjornson died on April 26, 1910, at the Hotel Wagram in Paris, where his death mask was taken the following day by the French sculptor, Paul Moreau-Vantier; the first cast is in the possession of the poet’s widow at Aulestadt in Norway. (Information supplied personally by Mrs. Bjornstjerne Bjornson.)

Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Leo Tolstoy

LEO TOLSTOY.–Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, at Yasnaya-Polyana, in the Gubernya of Tula, and died at Astapovo on November 20, 1910.

There the death mask was moulded by S. D. Merkurov on the second day after his death and presented by M. A. Stakhovich to the Tolstoy Museum in Leningrad. This is the first occasion on which a reproduction has been published, for which I have the kind permission of the Academy of Science in Leningrad.

Wikipedia entry for Josef Lewinsky

JOSEF LEWINSKY, the famous actor and portrayer of character in the Hofburg Theatre, was born on September 20, 1835, in Vienna, and died there on February 27, 1907. Lewinsky was engaged for the Burg Theatre by Laube in 1858, and may be regarded as the teacher of the younger generation of actors there, through the influence of his personality and his art; his greatest pupil was Josef Kainz. The death mask was taken by the sculptor Khuen and is in the Municipal Collections in the Vienna Town Hall.

Black & White Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.