Undying Faces ®

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Samuel Coleridge

Learn: Notes on mask from “Portraits in Plaster” at Google Books

Learn: Notes on mask from “Talks in a Library…” at Google Books

More Info: Life Mask - Laurence Hutton Collection

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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE “was born on October 20 . 1772, at Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire, and died on July 25 1834. As a poet and a brilliant critic he influenced Scott Shelley’ and Byron. He translated Schiller and made German philosophy known amongst his fellow-countrymen. The death mask came into the possession of the Princeton University library from the Hutton Collection, and Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, a grandson of the poet, personally vouched to Laurence Hutton for its genuineness. (L. Hutton:’.4 Collection of Death Masks, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1892, p. 783)”

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 L’Inconnue de la Seine

L’INCONNUE DE LA SEINE.–The history of this lovely but clearly unhappy young woman appears to be veiled in mysterious but compassionate obscurity. In the eyes of the world and according to the justice which she meted out to herself she was guilty of suicide, choosing death in the waters of the Seine, since the burden laid upon her feeble shoulders seemed too heavy to bear. For us she is a dainty butterfly fluttering without a care around the flame of life and so destroying and burning her wings before her time.

The death mask was taken in the Paris morgue. The whereabouts of the original is unknown to me.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.An excellent blog post about the history of this mask: http://victimshere.blogspot.com/2009/04/linconnue-de-la-seine.html 

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.

Wikipedia entry for Adolf Menzel

ADOLF MENZEL.–During his lifetime Menzel’s art was, perhaps, regarded as belonging too exclusively to Brandenburg and Prussia, and he was exalted to high honours for dynastic reasons; yet he is and remains one of the most conscientious of graphic artists and realists in the second half of the nineteenth century. His free and picturesque sketches in oils have maintained his reputation among a generation of impressionists, better than the finished historical paintings by which he won widespread fame.Menzel was born on December 8, 1815, at Breslau, and died in Berlin on February 9, 1905. His death mask was taken by the sculptor Reinhold Begas and is in the National Gallery in Berlin. Photograph by Treue, Berlin.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.

HUGO WOLF.–A name that inspires us with reverence, for the composer’s songs are amongst the most exquisite memorials of modern German music. During his lifetime Hugo Wolf failed to obtain recognition and was appreciated only by a small band of admirers; he did not live to see his work command the applause of the multitude. In 1897 paralysis attacked him and clouded his mind; he was released by death on February 22, 1903, at the age of forty-two (born March 13, 1860). The death mask was taken in the Vienna Public Asylum by the sculptor Seiffert, and passed to the Municipal Collections in the Vienna Town Hall.

Location:  Thielska Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden

Link: www.thielska-galleriet.se

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.–The great philosopher and thinker fell a victim to insanity in 1889, and was released by death on August 25, 1900, at Weimar; he was fifty-six years of age.The original of the death mask is in the Nietzsche archives at Weimar in the possession of Mrs. Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche. As the owner could not bring herself to permit the reproduction of the mask in this book, we were obliged to be content with the bronze cast in the Berlin National Gallery. Photograph by Treue, Berlin.

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.

GUIDO GEZELLE.–By profession a priest, by vocation a lyrical poet, the memory of Gezelle’s fruitful labours and of his tender and delicate poetry still lives in his Flemish home. He was born near Bruges on May i, 1830, and died there on November 27, 1899.The death mask was presented by the poet’s nephew Mr. Stijn Streuvels to Professor A. Kippenberg; it is still in his collection at Leipzig. To his kindness we owe the photographic reproduction.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.

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.

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.

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Lawrence Barrett

More Info: Life Mask - Laurence Hutton Collection

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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

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.

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Dion Boucicault

More Info: Life Mask - Laurence Hutton Collection

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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

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.

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.

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.

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Franz Liszt

Learn: Notes on mask from “Talks in a Library…”:

FRANZ LISZT.–We may assume that Liszt’s significance is generally realized. As a youthful prodigy of twelve he won  Beethoven’s recognition, and afterwards spent an active and creative life as virtuoso, composer, and impassioned partisan of Richard Wagner. It may be noted that on April 25, 1865, he was ordained in Rome as a priest. Liszt was born on October 22, 1811, at Raiding in Hungary, and died at Bayreuth on July 31, 1886. The mask was taken by the moulder Weissbrod of Bayreuth on the morning after the master’s death. Our reproduction was taken from a specimen in the Landesbibliothek at Weimar. Photograph by Berger, Weimar.

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.

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Victor Hugo

VICTOR HUGO was born on February 26,1802, at Besan- con, and died on May 22, 1885, in Paris. The famous sculptor Jules Dalou, a friend of the poet’s, took the death mask; it is still in the Maison Victor Hugo, in the Place des Vosges, Paris. Dalou modelled a terra-cotta head from the death mask for Victor Hugo’s children, but its theatrical expression is greatly inferior to the peaceful grandeur of the death mask; it, too, is kept in the Maison Hugo. Photograph by Giraudon, Paris.

Photo 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 from Richard Wagner

RICHARD WAGNER was born at Leipzig on May 22, 1813, and died at Venice in the Palazzo Vendramin on February 13, 1883. The Venetian sculptor Benvenuti took the death mask. The original of our reproduction was in the hands of Nikolaus Oesterlein in Vienna till 1887, and then passed, together with other Wagner relics, to the Wagner Museum of the town of Eisenach. (Karl Friedrich Glasenapp: DOS Leben Richard Wagners, Leipzig, 1916, vol. vi.) Photograph by Heinemann, Eisenach.

Learn: Wikipedia entry for Fedor Michailovich Dostoevsky

FEDOR MICHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY.–Dostoevsky was bom in Moscow on November 11, 1821, and died on February 9, 1881, at St. Petersburg (Leningrad). His death mask was taken on February 10 by the sculptor Leopold A. Bernstam (A. 1859 at Riga). It passed from the hands of the poet’s widow, Anna Dostoevskaya, to his brother Andrei Michailovich, and is now in the Dostoevsky Room of the Historical Museum in Moscow. Our reproduction was made by the photographer W. Fedorov, as kindly arranged by the Academy of Science at Leningrad. (Anna A. Dostoevskaya: Memoirs, Leningrad State Publications, 1925, p. 279.)

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.

Learn:  Wikipedia entry for Gustave Flaubert

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.–”His spirit was torn between the need for reality and the simultaneous needs of a free, powerful, and fertile imagination” (Emile Faguet). The life history of the great novelist is quite simple. He was born at Rouen on December 12, i Sai, and spent his whole life on his estate of Croisset near Rouen, except for certain travels, including a journey to the East in 1849; at Croisset he died on May 8, i88o. The death mask was taken at Croisset by Flaubert’s family doctor, Dr. Fordn, and is in the Flaubert archives at Antibes (Madame Caroline Franklin Grout). We owe thanks for the photograph and for information about the mask to Flaubert’s well-known translator, Dr. E. W. Fischer of Berlin.

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.

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.