Lee Death Mask of General Lee

White Flint Bill

Sergeant
Joined
Oct 9, 2017
Location
Southern Virginia
This is in the Museum of the American Civil War in Appomattox. It's one of the most macabre things I've ever seen in a museum.

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For those unfamiliar, a death mask is a plaster cast of a dead person's face.
 
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A lot of death masks are actually life masks, like Lincoln's death mask was done while he was alive. They are interesting because they do show what the individual really looked like, at least at a certain point in life. For example, there are two life masks of Admiral Nelson done in Vienna for sculptures. One has a lot more detail, like scars from various battles, and the other does not. And, it isn't precisely him either because he scrunched up his chin when the plaster went on - like Lincoln scrunched up his hands. That's why the Lincoln memorial has a clenched fist!
 
Don't be too hard on yourself.

All of us could have made the same error.

Back then, most 'death masks' actually looked nothing like the person in the photos/portraits we are so familiar with . . .
 
Don't be too hard on yourself.

All of us could have made the same error.

Back then, most 'death masks' actually looked nothing like the person in the photos/portraits we are so familiar with . . .
Thank you for the kind words! I fell into that internet trap and believed what I read there...
But as this site covers every detail of life, we even had a thread about that phenomenon, "I read it on the Internet"
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/i-read-it-on-the-internet.108419/#post-1026724
 
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