Talk:Death mask of Napoleon

I tried to clean up this page a bit as far as grammar, punctuation, etc, but I also found that there are some apparently contradictory passages, including Antommarchi's time in Cuba and whether that is a myth or fact, as almost identical passages exist in both the Myths & Legends and Current Locations sections of this article. If anyone knows definitely about that subject, please update this article accordingly. Also, this article has statements such as, "Many people believe," and, "It is believed...," which I believe are against Wikipedia standards; however, I don't have enough information to correct the passages that begin with those soft-claims, so again, if anyone has some answers, please update accordingly. Thanks! Srajan01 (talk) 06:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Will do my best

It's hard to find good information about this topic. I will also do my best to find enough info to correct the passages. Thanks! onilosmada (talk) 08:06, 18 August 2008 (CST)

Myths & Havana

I would not categorize François Carlo Antommarchi's cast as a "myth" or "legend". There is no such historical certainty. I would categorize it at "controversial". One has to understand the motivations behind the "controversy". For example, the conquered French vs. the conquering British, profiteering, and fame could definitely be motivations to defame Dr. Antommarchi. It is likely that 2 casts where made. Then again, Antommarchi could have made up the story. But, we will never know for sure.

The "Museo Napoleonico de la Havana" does indeed have a cast of the mask, See François Carlo Antommarchi for a link to the museum and to their mask.

By the way, the Art Institute of Chicago does have a copy as well.

Sidna (talk)

Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the info. I will make adjustments accordingly when I get a bit more time. I was wondering if it is possible to add that picture of the death mask to this page? It would make for a fine addition.

Thanks again!

( Onilosmada  |  talk  20:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC))

Final Jeopardy Question

It was the final jeopardy question today 75.64.69.223 (talk) 20:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Authenticity

There are many death masks claimed to be Napoléon’s. Most of them bear no significant resemblance to contemporary portraits of him. The problem with portraits from the Empire Style period (circa 1790 – 1830) is the special type of beautification which was then fashionable. It worked by depicting the distances between the person’s chin, mouth and nose as shorter than they really where. The result was usually a shape of face which does not exist. What I mean is that the exact distances between the features of the face don’t occur among people alive today. Fortunately, different artists typically used the same degree of distortion and some did not use it at all. There where even artists like Jacques-Louis David which usually distorted the shapes of people’s faces this way but sometimes choose to not do so. There are at least five contemporary portraits of Napoléon showing real-world shapes of face. Three of them are consistent with each other in that they show the same shape of face. They can be found here, here and here. Furthermore there is a bust which may or may not be contemporary. This picture is a cropped version of a digital photo of a folder which Ben Weider sent to me in May, 2007. I asked him if it was contemporary. He answered that he did not know and did not care about it. If it is not contemporary my educated guess is that the model was the wax figure of him made by Marie Tussaud in 1801. In those days the heads of wax figures had to be casts so the result was nearly identical to the portrayed person. (However, the wax figure of Napoléon shown at Madame Tussauds in London today is not the original but a bad 20th century copy. I have been there and seen it so I know what I am talking about.) Finally, there is this portrait of Napoléon. It is posthumous but shows such a high degree of resemblance to the three known to be contemporary that it most be based on sketches made during his lifetime. From these portraits it is possible to get a good mental image of how he looked despite he died before the invention of the camera.

Of all death masks claimed to be Napoléon’s only two has the same shape of face as shown in the portraits I previously liked to. There is one made of copper and one out of bronze. A photo of the copper one can be found here. It is the best digital photo I have of it. Fortunately, I have a better photo in a book. So I can tell that the cheeks are slightly sunken, the eyes also sunken and there is a large cleft in the chin. On the other hand there is no trace of any furrows. To my knowledge this death mask is still kept in Longwood House on Saint Helena. A photo of the bronze one can be found here. It can be found in one of the National Museums of Liverpool. I don’t know which one since I have only seen it on their common website. It is similar to the copper one but not identical. The nose is longer and there are clear furrows around the eyes. A likely explanation is that the copper death mask is really Napoléon’s while the bronze one is that of his brother Lucien. He died in 1840 at the age of 65. Napoléon would have turned 52 the same year as he died. According to contemporary eyewitnesses the dead Napoléon’s skin was completely smooth. Of cause, he did have some irregularities and a lot of scares but his skin had no furrows due to ageing. I am also convinced that Napoléon had a shorter nose than Lucien. The best portrait of Lucien I have seen can be found here. Strangely, it has the distances between his chin, mouth and nose minimized but shows not other sign of intentional beautification. I have a plausible explanation for this. During the course of the work with the painting Lucien was shown it and said: “No, I want more likeness!” But then it was too late to change the distances between the features of his face. Fortunately, there is a portrait of Napoléon with the same or nearly the same degree of beautification which can be found here. It has his shape of face distorted in the then fashionable way but shows no other signs of intentional beautification other than possibly less baldness. (Napoléon started to grew bald ten years earlier.) In this case the artist may have decided the level of beautification a little too late. Of cause there is the alternative explanation for both portraits that the artists where unable to break off their habit of depicting people with smaller yaws than they really had. Anyway, these portraits are useful for comparing the faces of Napoléon and Lucien. They tell me that the two brothers did not only have entirely different eyes, Napoléon’s nose was also shorter than Lucien’s. If the bronze death mask is really Lucien’s there should be a cleft in the chin. However, it is not necessary as large as that of the copper death mask.

The only problem is that there are statements that Napoléon was fat when he died. To me it makes much more medical sense if he was lean. The last five years of his life he suffered more or less from deficiency in appetite. This was compared to the modest amounts of food he previously used to eat. During a period of nearly six weeks ending mere days before he died he suffered from severe vomiting almost every day. When the vomiting eventually ceased he was already so ill that he refused to eat more than a couple of biscuits before he died. I simply can’t understand how someone could become and remain obese with such symptoms. We also have to ask: if the copper death mask is not Napoléon’s whose is it? I have no doubt that it is a cast of a dead person’s face. The surface is uneven and the face is not completely symmetric in that the chin is shifted slightly to the right. Who had the same shape of face as the three (or possibly four) contemporary portraits show, a short nose, thin lips, a protruding chin with a large cleft and could sensibly have been lean when he or she died? I know about only one such person: Napoléon I Bonaparte. I have seen many portraits of his relatives and considered several of them, yet no-one seem to fit. Suggest any other person and I will tell what I think.

2010-12-29 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.