Death mask of Napoleon

[3] Napoleon's original death mask was created on 7 May 1821,[1] a day and a half after the former emperor died on the island of Saint Helena at age 51.

Some historical accounts contend that François Carlo Antommarchi (one of several doctors who encircled Napoleon's deathbed) cast the original "parent mould", which would later be used to reproduce bronze and additional plaster copies.

Other records, however, indicate that Francis Burton, a surgeon attached to the British Army's 66th Regiment at Saint Helena, presided at the emperor's autopsy and during that postmortem procedure cast the original mould.

It is believed that the mask still resides in the Museum in Santiago de Cuba, Oriente Province, where there was a large group of French immigrants that established coffee plantations in the high mountains of the Sierra Maestra.

Eventually Napoleon's death mask wound up in the Atlanta home of Captain William Greene Raoul, president of the Mexican National Railroad.

[1] During its first years in Chapel Hill, Napoleon's plaster face was displayed as a curio on a table in the office of UNC President George T. Winston.

[1] A bronze death mask is in the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery; it was donated by Sir George Grey and is attributed to Antommarchi.

[7] An 1833 bronze casting belongs to the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

[8] Another death mask formerly owned by John Codman Ropes now resides in the lobby of Boston University's Mugar Library.