Death Masks of Dante, Nietzsche, Joyce, Beethoven and Other Greats

Dante.deathmask

Death masks — they have been around since the days of King Tut in Ancient Egypt, and (per­haps) Agamem­non and Cas­san­dra in Ancient Greece. A way to remem­ber the char­ac­ter and expres­sions of the dead, this memo­r­i­al prac­tice con­tin­ued right down through the Mid­dle Ages when wax and plas­ter became the mate­ri­als of choice.

nietzsche death mask

Today, we’re left with facial imprints of impor­tant his­tor­i­cal lead­ers (CromwellNapoleonPeter the Great); cul­tur­al giants (Dante up top, Shake­speareVoltaire, New­tonBeethovenJames Joyce, Niet­zsche); and some recent­ly more depart­ed icons (Hitch­cock and Tim­o­thy Leary).

joyce death mask

Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty hosts online a fair­ly large col­lec­tion of Life and Death Masks, and the good folks at Bib­liok­lept high­light masks of the intel­li­gent, pow­er­ful and famous on an ongo­ing basis. Unfor­tu­nate­ly these col­lec­tions skew almost entire­ly male — a sign of the times that came before us.

Above, you can see the masks of Niet­zsche, Dante, and Joyce mov­ing from top to bot­tom.


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Comments (8)
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  • Lee says:

    Thank you for this!
    The Napolean mask creeps me out a lit­tle, and Leary looks like his eyes are about to erupt open.

  • Death masks seem ghoul­ish, but giv­en how unre­li­able were painters, and how scarce many are, this is the only way for us to see what peo­ple real­ly looked like in the past. I find them fas­ci­nat­ing, not just for what they show us but for what they don’t. and also, who had it done and why. In the age of pho­tog­ra­phy and celebri­ty, it seems strange and won­der­ful this tra­di­tion con­tin­ues.

  • Zou Zou says:

    I’ve watched a pro­gram about death masks which dis­cov­ered that the death mask of napoleon is slight­ly off and was in fact a blend of both his and his ille­git­i­mate broth­ers face.

  • Chris Lites says:

    If you gaze into the Niet­zsche death mask does the death mask also gaze into you.

  • Fantomas says:

    Goethe’s mask is the only which is not look­ing like a hal­loween mask, i’m glad this one was not destroyed dur­ing WWII.

  • César says:

    Dan­te’s mask is actu­al­ly fake.

    • MLlano says:

      Thank you! I was think­ing the very same thing! I remem­ber hear­ing a long time ago from a source I unfor­tu­nate­ly can’t remem­ber as well that Dante Alighieri actu­al­ly did not, in fact, look as he’s usu­al­ly por­trayed; and that he had a small nose, not aquiline at all.

    • MLlano says:

      Thank you! I was think­ing the very same thing! I remem­ber hear­ing a long time ago from a source I unfor­tu­nate­ly can’t remem­ber as well that Dante Alighieri actu­al­ly did not, in fact, look as he’s usu­al­ly por­trayed; and that he had a small nose, not aquiline at all.

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