1892-93, I failed to find this copy of the Cromwell mask or any record
of its ever having existed there, although the Pitti Palace contains an
original portrait of Cromwell from life by Sir Peter Lely, which was
presented by the Protector to this same Grand Duke Ferdinand II.
The mask of Henry IV., that darling king whose praises still the
Frenchmen sing, has also a curious history. During the French
Revolution, as is well known, the tombs of the Bourbons and the Valois
at St. Denis were desecrated by the citizens of the republic. And when
they began to “empty the rat-hole under the high altar,” to use the
words of one of their own leaders, the first coffin they came upon was
that of Henry of Navarre. The body was discovered to have been carefully
embalmed, and it was enveloped in a series of narrow bands of linen,
steeped in some chemical preparation. The face was so well preserved
that even the fan-shaped beard seemed as if it had been but recently
dressed. The upper part of the brain had been removed, and was replaced
by a sponge filled with aromatic essences. Enormous crowds came from
Paris to look upon what was left of the monarch who once wished that all
his subjects might have capon for their Sunday dinners; and undoubtedly
some one of them made this cast of his face. It is still a common object
in the plaster shops of Paris; and, painted a dark green to match the
lintel of his door, it serves to-day as a sign and a symbol for a dealer
in plaster images who does business in one of the side streets near
upper Broadway, New York.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: HENRY IV. OF FRANCE]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
M. Germain Bapst, writing in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, October,
1891, described a bust of Henry in wax which is preserved at Chantilly;
and he proved it to be the work of G. Dupré, who, according to Malherbe,
a contemporary historian, went to the Louvre the day after the king’s
death to make the wax effigy for his funeral, and took with him the
modeller, who made a cast from the king’s features. Concerning this cast
itself the writer was silent; but he stated, although without giving his
authority, that the plaster cast here reproduced dates back only to the
time of the exhumation.
A scarce contemporary French engraving, entitled “Henri IV. Exhumé,”
represents the king as standing upright in an open coffin, against one
of the great stone pillars in the vaults of St. Denis. The body is
wrapped in strips of cloth, like an Egyptian mummy, but the head and
shoulders are entirely exposed. A long inscription, at the bottom of the
print, explains that “on this occasion a plaster cast was taken of the
face—_on a moulé sur la nature même le plâtre_—from which to-day artists
make their portraits of the great sovereign. The drawing upon which this
engraving is based was executed by an eyewitness, and it shows the exact
and marvellous state of preservation in which the body of the founder of
the Bourbons was discovered. There was an effort made by the National
Assembly to preserve this precious relic; but, alas, it was too late.”
The original mask of Henry is now in the Library of Ste. Geneviève, in
Paris.
Charles XII. of Sweden was a soldier and little else. He knew no such
word as fear. He was haughty and inflexible. He never thought of
consulting the happiness of his people. He ascended the throne of a
nation rich, powerful, and happy; he died king of a country which was
ruined, wretched, and defenceless. Whether or not he was killed by one
of his own soldiers, history has never been able to determine. He was
shot in the head at the siege of Frederickshald, in Norway, in 1718; and
when his body was exhumed and examined, a hundred and fifty years later,
“the centre of his forehead was found to be disfigured by a depression
corresponding with a fracture of that part of the skull.” The fatal
missile had passed entirely through the King’s head from left to right
in a downward direction; and in the cast in my collection the
indentures, particularly the larger one on the right temple, are clearly
perceptible. An engraving of this death-mask, dated 1823, contains the
legend that it was “made four hours after he was shot, and was taken
from the original cast preserved in the University Library at Cambridge,
by Angelica Clarke.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The copy of this cast in the British Museum is from the Christy
collection. Henry Christy is known to have been in Stockholm at the time
of the sale of the effects of Baestrom, the Swedish sculptor, and he is
believed to have purchased it then and there. It contains more of the
top and back of the head than the cast here reproduced, and it bears,
very unmistakably, evidences of the bullet wounds in the temples. This
cast, the wax mask of Cromwell mentioned above, and a cast of the face
of James II. of England, are the only things of the kind the British
Museum possesses.
Lavater wrote with unbounded enthusiasm of the impression made upon him
by the face of Frederick the Great, whom he once saw in life. “Of all
the physiognomies I have ever examined,” he said, “there is not a single
one which bears so strongly as this does the impress of its high
destiny. The forehead, which forms almost a straight and continued line
with the nose, announces impatience against the human race, and
communicates the expression of it to the cheeks and lips,” etc. And Mr.
Fowler, who knew Frederick only by his portraits, ascribed to him fine
temperament, intense mentality, great clearness and sharpness of
thought, with a tendency to scholarship, and especially to languages,
and with immense acquisitiveness.
Carlyle wrote: “All next day the body [of Frederick] lay in state in the
Palace; thousands crowding, from Berlin and the other environs, to see
the face for the last time. Wasted, worn, but beautiful in death, with
the thin gray hair parted into locks and slightly powdered. And at eight
in the evening, Friday, 18th [of August, 1786], he was borne to the
Garrison-kirche of Potsdam, and laid beside his father in the vault
behind the pulpit there.”
The original of this cast of Frederick the Great is in the Hohenzollern
Museum in Berlin, and of course is authentic. My own copy I brought from
Berlin some ten years ago, with the consent of the authorities of the
Museum.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: FREDERICK THE GREAT]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Concerning the personal appearance of General Grant, Mr. William A.
Purrington, of New York, thus writes in a private letter, which he has
kindly permitted me to make public:
“When I first knew the General I was a school-boy, and of course felt
the school-boy’s awe of a great man. Privileged to know him for years in
the intimacy of his own home, I never entirely overcame that feeling.
What was heroic in him grew, and did not diminish. The more I saw of him
the more I felt that he was good as well as great. His face used to be
called sphinx-like. That was scarcely true, for although its expression
was always calm, strong, imperturbable, it was also one of great
gentleness. He surely was a gentleman. Perhaps his hands aided to keep
his face serene, for we must all have some safety-valve. Almost the only
external indication of annoyance I ever noticed in him was a nervous
opening and shutting of his fingers, an index of emotion often observed
by other of his more intimate friends. A notable illustration of this
trait was told me by a gentleman who once accompanied him to a large
public dinner given in his honor. At its close one of the guests
ventured upon the telling of stories which are not told _pueris
virginibusque_. The General’s fingers began to work; he quietly excused
himself; and his companion, who knew the significance of the gesture,
followed him. As they smoked their cigars on the streets of the foreign
city in which this occurred, the General said: ‘I hope I have not taken
you from the table, but I have never permitted such conversation in my
presence, and I never intend to.’ This was not an affectation. His mind,
clear and wholesome, left its imprint in his face. Grossness or scandal
gave him genuine discomfort. He loved to think well of his kind. This
trait showed in his face, gave it benignity, and was, I fancy, the
secret of his hold on the affections of men. We chanced to be alone in
his room one night after the last cruel betrayal of his confidence, he
walking to and fro by the aid of his crutch. Suddenly he stopped, and,
as if following aloud the train of his silent thought, he said: ‘I have
made it a rule of my life to believe in a man long after others have
given him up. I do not see how I can do so again.’ There was no
bitterness in his voice, not even an elevation of tone. It was simply an
exclamation of an honest heart sorely wounded in its belief.
“As I recall his face, that which I remember is not so much line and
contour as the expression of strength, of great patience, of calmness,
and of gentleness; and the incidents which illustrate pure qualities
also come back freshly to my memory.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: U. S. GRANT]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“He had, too, a merry face; at times a merry eye. He was full of sly
humor. The twinkling of his eye and his quiet laugh promptly rewarded an
amusing story. In his own home his face was always kind and responsive.
There he was not the silent man the world thought it knew, but a fluent
and well-informed talker on all that was of interest to him.
Undoubtedly, however, he had the gift of silence, and when he saw fit to
exercise it his face became a mask, conversation ceased to be among the
possibilities, and a chat with a graven image would have been a relief
at such a time. He became then, and designedly, a silence-compeller.
When there was nothing to be said, he said nothing.”
General Grant, on the occasion of the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox Court House, was thus described by General Horace Porter, his
aide-de-camp: “He was then nearly forty-three years of age, five feet
eight inches in height, with shoulders slightly stooped. His hair and
full beard were a nut-brown, without a trace of gray. He had on a
single-breasted blouse, made of dark-blue flannel, unbuttoned in front,
and showing a waistcoat underneath. He wore an ordinary pair of
top-boots, with his trousers inside and without spurs. The boots and
portions of his clothes were spattered with mud. He had had on a pair of
thread gloves of a dark yellow color, which he had taken off on entering
the room. His felt ‘sugar-loaf,’ stiff-brimmed hat was thrown on the
table beside him. He had no sword, and a pair of shoulder straps was all
there was about him to designate his rank. In fact, aside from these,
his uniform was that of a private soldier.”
This was thoroughly characteristic of the simplicity and modesty of the
man. He came, in the face of the whole admiring world, to make his
lasting mark upon one of the most important pages of his country’s
history, the General of his country’s armies, perhaps the greatest
soldier of his time, without a spur and without a sword, in the
well-worn uniform of a private of Volunteers.
He died as bravely and as quietly as he had lived, like one who had even
studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owned, as ’twere
a careless trifle. He sleeps now on the banks of the Hudson, in that
enduring, honorable peace for which he had fought so long, and which he
had won so gloriously. His body was greatly wasted by lingering disease,
but those who saw him immediately after death say that his face looked
ten years younger than it had looked during the previous trying months.
The cast of Grant here presented is still in the possession of his
family in New York; and it is the only copy ever made with their
consent, and to their knowledge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: WILLIAM T. SHERMAN]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of General Sherman, General Porter said: “He was a many-sided man, who
had run the entire gamut of human experience. He had been merchant,
banker, lawyer, professor, traveller, author, doctor, president of a
street railway, and soldier. Wherever he was placed, his individuality
was conspicuous and pronounced. His methods were always original, and
even when unsuccessful they were entertaining. He could not have been
commonplace if he had tried.” There was certainly nothing commonplace in
his personal appearance. His frame was tall and wiry; his hazel eyes
were sharp and penetrating; his nose was aquiline; his beard was short
and crisp; his mouth was firm and tender; his bearing was courtly,
unpretentious, and dignified. He was the typical soldier in appearance
and action; like Grant, he was entirely devoid of any outward expression
of vanity, self-esteem, or self-consciousness. As he was one of the
bravest, so was he one of the gentlest, kindest, most sympathetic of
men. The mask of General Sherman was made immediately after his death,
under the direction of Mr. St. Gaudens.
Washington was as blessed in his death as in his life. He rests still
upon the banks of the Potomac, among the people whom he so dearly loved
and among whom he died; and no later administration has ever cared to
cut off his head for exhibition on the roof of the Patent Office or the
Smithsonian Institution.
At least two plaster casts were taken from the living face of
Washington. The first, by Joseph Wright, in 1783, was broken by the
nervous artist before it was dry; and the subject absolutely, and, it is
whispered, profanely, refused to submit to the unpleasant operation
again. The second was made by Houdon, the celebrated French sculptor, in
1785, and from it was modelled the familiar bust which bears Houdon’s
name.
The original Houdon mask of Washington is now in the possession of Mr.
W. W. Story, in his studio in Rome. He traces it directly from Houdon’s
hands, and naturally he prizes it very highly. It has been preserved
with great care, and of it he says “there is no question that it was
made from the living face of Washington, and that therefore it is the
most absolutely authentic representation of the actual forms and
features of his face that exists. In all respects, any portrait which
materially differs from it must be wrong.” Mr. Story cannot account for
the fact that the sculptor opened the eyes of Washington in the mask,
except upon the supposition that he did not remain long enough at Mount
Vernon to have studied and modelled the eyes for his bust from the face
of Washington himself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is but just to add here that Mr. Story says that never, to his
knowledge or belief, has a cast been made from the original which he
owns. He examined the so-called cast in the Corcoran Gallery at
Washington, and he was fully satisfied that, like all the other
specimens in existence, it is of no value in itself, and was made from a
worn-out copy of the bust. The Washington mask here presented is from a
photograph taken by Mr. Story in Rome, and from his own copy.
The attempt of the sculptor Browere to take a life-mask of Thomas
Jefferson was not more successful, and was much more disastrous, than
Wright’s attempt upon the face of Washington. Mr. Ben Perley Poore
quotes Clark Mills as telling the following story: “The family of the
ex-President were opposed to it, but he finally consented, saying that
he could not find it in his heart to refuse a man so trifling a favor
who had come so far. He was placed on his back on a sofa, one of his
hands grasping a chair which stood in front. Not dreaming of any danger,
his family could not bear to see him with the plaster over his face, and
therefore were not present; and his faithful Burwell was the only person
besides the artist in the room. There was some defect in the
arrangements made to permit his breathing, and Mr. Jefferson came near
suffocating. He was too weak to rise or to relieve himself, and his
feeble struggles were unnoticed or unheeded by his Parrhasius.
“The sufferer finally bethought himself of the chair on which his hand
rested. He raised it as far as he was able, and struck it on the floor.
Burwell became conscious of his situation, and sprang furiously forward.
The artist shattered his cast in an instant. The family now reached the
room, and Browere looked as if he thought their arrival most opportune,
for though Burwell was supporting his master in his arms, the fierce
glare of the African eye boded danger. Browere was permitted to pick up
his fragments of plaster and carry them off, but whether he ever put
them together to represent features emaciated with age and debility, and
writhing in suffocation, Mills did not know.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The mask of Jefferson in the fragmentary condition described above would
be of little value even if it had been preserved.
When Houdon came to America in 1785 to make the bust of Washington, he
was the companion of Benjamin Franklin, and he was, in all probability,
the author of this cast of Franklin’s face, taken in Paris that year as
a model for the well-known Houdon bust of Franklin, which it somewhat
resembles. The original mask was sold in Paris for ten francs after the
death of the artist in 1828.
The familiars of Franklin have shown that his face in his old age
changed in a very marked degree. He was in his seventy-eighth or his
seventy-ninth year when he sat for Houdon in 1784-85. Many of the
features of the Franklin cast as here reproduced—the long square chin,
the sinking just beneath the under lip, the shape of the nose, and the
formation of the cheekbones—are strongly preserved in the face of one of
his great-granddaughters now living in Philadelphia.
Leigh Hunt in his _Autobiography_ said that Franklin and Thomas Paine
were frequently guests at the house of his maternal grandfather in
Philadelphia when his mother was a girl. She remembered them both
distinctly; and in her old age she told her son that while she had great
affection and admiration for Franklin, Paine “had a countenance that
inspired her with terror.” Hunt was inclined to attribute this in a
great measure to Paine’s political and religious views, both of them
naturally obnoxious and shocking to the daughter of a Pennsylvania Tory
and rigid churchman. Concerning the physical as well as the moral traits
of the author of the _Age of Reason_, there seems to have been great
diversity of opinion. To paraphrase the speech of Griffith in _Henry
VIII._ concerning Wolsey, He was uncleanly and sour to them that loved
him not, but to those men that sought him, sweet and fragrant as summer.
His friend and biographer, Clio Rickman, who considered him “a very
superior character to Washington,” gave strong testimony to his personal
attractions and tidiness of dress; while James Cheetham, his biographer
and not his friend, told a very different and not a very pleasant story,
in which soap and water—or their absence—play an important part. The
former, according to Cheetham, was never employed externally by Paine,
and the latter was very rarely, if ever, internally applied.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: THOMAS PAINE]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
None of his earlier biographers give any hint as to the taking of this
death-mask, nor is it to be found in any contemporary printed account of
the death-bed scene, although Mr. Moncure D. Conway, in his _Life of
Paine_, published in 1892, accepts it as genuine, and ascribes it to
Jarvis. All the experts agree that it is the face of Paine, and see in
it a strong resemblance to the face in the Romney portrait, painted in
1792, seventeen years before Paine died. It was undoubtedly made after
death, by John Wesley Jarvis, the painter, who was at one time an
intimate of Paine. He studied modelling in clay, and made the bust of
Paine which is now in the possession of the Historical Society of New
York. Concerning this bust Dr. Francis, in his _Old New York_, wrote:
“The plaster cast of the head and features of Paine, now preserved in
the Gallery of Arts of the Historical Society, is remarkable for its
fidelity to the original at the close of his life. Jarvis, the painter,
then felt it his most successful work in that line of occupation, and I
can confirm the opinion from my many opportunities of seeing Paine.” He
added that Jarvis said, “I shall secure him to a nicety if I am so
fortunate as to get plaster enough for his carbuncled nose,” which was
not a very pretty speech to have made under any circumstances,
particularly if the bust was executed after the subject’s death.
The death-mask of Aaron Burr was made by an agent of Messrs. Fowler &
Wells, who still possess the original cast. The features are shortened
in a marked degree by the absence of the teeth. Mr. Fowler said that “in
Burr destructiveness, combativeness, firmness, and self-esteem were
large, and amativeness excessive.” It is a curious fact, now generally
forgotten, that Burr and Hamilton resembled each other in face and
figure in a very marked degree, although Burr was a trifle the taller.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: AARON BURR]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A bust of Burr by Turnerelli, an Italian sculptor residing in London
during the first decade of the century, was exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1809; and Burr, in his _Diary and Letters_, spoke more than
once of the cast of his face made by the sculptor at that time. He
explained to Theodosia that he “submitted to the very unpleasant
ceremony because Turnerelli said it was necessary,” and because Bentham
and others had undergone a similar penance; and in his _Diary_ he wrote:
“Casting my eyes in the mirror, I observed a great purple mark on my
nose; went up and washed and rubbed it, all to no purpose. It was
indelible. That cursed mask business has occasioned it. I believe the
fellow used quicklime instead of plaster of Paris, for I felt a very
unpleasant degree of heat during the operation.... I have been applying
a dozen different applications to the nose, which have only inflamed it.
How many curses have I heaped upon that Italian!... At eleven went to
Turnerelli to sit. Relieved myself by abusing him for that nose
disaster.... He will make a most hideous frightful thing [of the bust];
but much like the original.”
This mask, if it is still in existence—which is not probable—would be an
invaluable addition to the portraiture of Burr.