Exceptional death mask of Napoleon I, in two layers, the first one in shellac and the second in plaster filling. This cast is all the more impressive that it is possible to see in several places the grain of the skin, especially on the forehead , neck at the Adam’s apple and on the upper lip, we are able to see wrinkles. 

Inscription on the left side: Da Franesco ANTOMMARCHHI 7 Mai 1821.
Inscription on the right side: Napoleon Death Mask
35 cm -13.7''

Provenance: 

- Hotel Drouot auction, Paris, 1977. (Also at Drouot’s, there was a second Napoleon death mask presented, with the provenance of the L’Abbe Vignali collection)
- Robert Foley collection, Sotheby’s Parke Bernet auction, Monaco S.A., October 6th, 1980, lot number 1223.
- Important collection of a gentleman of Victoria, British-Colombia. 

History:

François Antommarchi was born in Corsica in 1780 and died in Cuba in 1838. Surgeon for most of his life, he studied at the University of Pisa in 1808 and at the Imperial University of Florence in 1812, before being summoned by the mother of Napoleon I, Maria Letizia Ramonolino and his uncle, the Cardinal Fesch, for the purpose of becoming the Emperor’s medical officer in 1819, on St. Helena island. At the death of the Emperor, May 5Th, 1821, he was the only one allowed to autopsy the body. 
It is on May 6th, 1821 that Dr. Francis Burtons, colleague of Antommarchi, found enough gypsum on the island to make a mould of the Emperor’s face. On May 7th, 1821, a first cast of the death mask was made, destroying in the process the initial mould. Antommarchi, during the summer of 1822, create a mould by using the death mask created on May 7th, 1821, that he kept in reserve until the death of Francis Burton (1832), in order to avoid conflict between the two men. In 1833, Antommarchi launched a subscription of his model of the death mask at the cost of 100 francs for the bronze model and 20 francs for the plaster model. The project is sponsored by relevant important figures of that time such as General Bertrand and Gourgaud as well as the earl of Flahaut. Still today, we can find some of these death masks in museum, such as le musée de l’Armée à Paris, le Musée National du Château de Malmaison, le musée de la Maison Bonaparte à Ajaccio or le Musée Fesch.