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From our 21st century vantage point the making and collecting of life and death masks may seem a bizarre and rather grotesque thing to do. The practice has ancient origins and stems from man’s desire to preserve the soul by preserving the facial features of the dead.

From medieval times it was customary, on the deaths of kings and queens, to make a lifesize and lifelike wax effigy of the deceased which, suitably robed, would be paraded through the streets at the state funeral. Westminster Abbey houses a collection of effigies of various sovereigns including Charles II, William and Mary, and Queen Anne and it was “the custom of the servants of the Church to show on all holidays the tombes and the effigies of our sovereigns, to the meaner sort.” Egyptian death mask -

In the 19th century the rise and popularity of phrenology (from the Greek root phren meaning mind and logos meaning study) led to the formation of great collections of both life and death masks of the famous and infamous as well as those of ‘different races’.

Phrenologists believed that the shape of the brain was determined by the development of the various organs and that as the skull takes its shape from the brain then the surface of the skull was an accurate index of pyschological aptitudes and tendencies.

The first phrenological society was founded in Edinburgh in 1820 and its large collection of masks is now in the care of the University of Edinburgh’s Anatomy Department. Other notable collections are in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Hunterian Death Masks

The Hunterian’s small collection was acquired from a variety of sources. The death masks of Voltaire, William Cullen, and William Hunter came from the collections of the Old College of Glasgow University, that is before the University moved from its original site on the High Street to Gilmorehill in 1870.

The mask of Isaac Newton was donated in 1819 by the renowned sculptor John Flaxman R.A. (1755-1826). Flaxman, whose father had been a moulder of plaster figures, found fame as a designer for Josiah Wedgewood and is also noted for his monumental sculpture including that of the naval hero Lord Nelson in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the poet Robert Burns in Westminster Abbey.

Early donations books show that the mask of Charles XII was donated in 1868 by Thomas Barclay MA, DD, Principal of Glasgow University from 1858 to 1873. Charles XII was killed by a bullet wound to the head and the mask clearly shows the damage that was done.

The death mask, in copper bronze, of Charles Edward Stuart was bought at auction in 1996. The original plaster death mask was made by an Italian family of modellers named Lucheese and is said to have been used by the famous sculptor Canova for the monument to the Stuarts in St. Peter’s in Rome. It was subsequently brought to Scotland by Bernadine Lucheese and reproduced in copper bronze by Smith & Rait of Glasgow.

Although the masks were acquired at different periods and from a variety of sources some interesting connections between them can be found. In life, William Cullen and William Hunter were teacher and pupil and lifelong friends. Voltaire was much inspired by the works of Isaac Newton and wrote Elements of the Philosophy of Newton in 1738 and in 1750 he wrote a biography of Charles XII. One of Charles’ more ambitious plans was to exchange the Baltic provinces of Sweden with Russia in return for the freedom to invade Norway. He then planned to land in Scotland to put the Jacobite James Stuart (father of Charles Edward) on the British throne. Charles XII was killed before the plan could be realised and history had to wait for the ‘Young Pretender’.