Undying Faces ®

ISAAC NEWTON. — “This great man envisaged and established the image of the universe presented to the modern world by natural science. He led us out of the mists of hypothetic speculations to a clear vision based upon empirical reasoning and mathematical calculations. Just as he had the courage to advocate the truths discovered by his researches and to stand up for them in the conflict of opinion, never shrinking from the labour involved, so as a politician and representative of Cambridge in Parliament he did not cling to outworn forms, and played an important part in the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty. Newton was born at Woolstrop in Lincolnshire on December 25, 1642, the year, that is, of Galileo’s death; his principal spheres of activity were Cambridge and the learned company of the Royal Society in London, of which he was President from 1703 till his death (March 31, 1727). After Roubillac’s death Newton’s death mask came into the hands of a London art dealer, from whom it was bought in 1839 by Professor Samuel Hunter Christie, secretary of the Royal Society, on behalf of the Society. It is still kept on their premises. There is a cast made from the mask in the Hutton Collection in the Princeton University library, N.J. Our reproduction was made in London by permission of the Royal Society. (William Huggins: The Royal Society, London, 1906, pp. 14 and 129.) Photograph by Millar & Harris, London.”

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.

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