Gen. Robert E. Lee Death mask of Robert E. Lee, plaster mold of Lee's face when he died by Clark Mills (American, 1810-1883), 1870. Life sized. Eyes are shut, beard shows, open in back.

At first the making of a death mask seemed an impossible task—plaster was hard to come by on St. Helena—but on May 7 a mold was cast by English surgeon Francis Burton and/or Napoleon's ...

Whatever else the death mask captures, it captures a dead body first and foremost. The traces of death register in masks in a variety of ways, often contingent on the corpse’s freshness.

Wear and tear of the fragile plaster, not to mention the sheer size and value of the collection, prevent the masks from being displayed. ("They've been used a lot over the past 100 years," Mellby ...

On 7 May 1821, two doctors were engrossed in a frantic search. There was a decomposing body at stake – and if they didn't find some plaster soon, its features would be lost forever.