Designers Focus On Macabre Collectibles
New York, New York- You can find them in many museums. In England, The Metropolitan Police's Crime Museum has a vast cache. Jenny Lawson, best selling author and proprietor of the Nowhere Bookshop, posted one on her Instagram feed. Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro has several in his vast collection. The FBI has John Dillinger’s. The House Of Wax Bar in Brooklyn has Kaiser Wilhelm I and Napoleon Bonaparte. We are talking about death masks, the latest “must have” item for interior designers.
A death mask is a cast of a person's face made after their death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. In some European countries, it was common for death masks to be used as part of the effigy of the deceased, displayed at state funerals. During the 18th and 19th centuries masks were also used to permanently record the features of unknown corpses for purposes of identification. One famous death mask, known as L'Inconnue de la Seine (The Unknown Woman of the Seine) was an unidentified young woman whose serene death mask became a popular fixture on the walls of artists' homes after 1900. Later she became the model for the head of the first aid mannequin Resusci Anne. For this reason, the face has been called "the most kissed face" of all time.
Falling out of favor in the mid-1900’s, many death masks were relegated to storage or discarded. Then something unexpected happened, collectors started to acquire them from estate sales and antique shops catering to those with morbid tastes. By the time Mike Zohn and Evan Michelson visited a New York collector for the KILLER QUEEN episode of their series ODDITIES in 2012, prices had already begun to skyrocket. Now designers and decorators snap them up at auction houses and have assistants monitor eBay https://tinyurl.com/33876ens and other online sources around the clock to decorate the homes of tony clientele. With prices occasionally reaching £170,000.00 (Approx $220,000.000 USD) many morgues, mortuaries, and funeral homes have begun to scour their archives in search of forgotten treasures.
Death masks and busts of infants have begun to gain in popularity due to their size. While most adult death masks are displayed hanging on a wall, child and infant death masks can usually stand discreetly on a desk or shelf. Says one decorator “It’s a perfect example of Less Is More”. Renowned artist Claudia Guderian has an installation called FACING DEATH. Composed of 102 death masks displayed on monolithic pedestals, each representing an age between 1 and 102, the work is on display in Germany. Many visitors who view the installation talk of the powerful emotions it evokes, far more than a photo could hope to do. The physical presence and tactile sensation of interaction with the death masks helps one understand their appeal to collectors.