The Death Mask of Napoleon 4details

Making the Mask

Doctor Francesco Antommarchi attended Napoleon at his death bed and crafted the original mold for the death mask forty hours after Napoleon died on May 5, 1821. This original mold was used to cast four bronze masks and three replicas at a later date. The mask you see before you is one of the four bronze masks.

There are other stories about Napoleon’s death mask. One account says that Antommarchi did not make the mask, but stole it from an English physician named Francis Burton. Another version claims that the mold is not of Napoleon’s face, but that of Francis Eugene Robeaud, who occasionally doubled for the emperor.

Presentation to New Orleans

Doctor Antommarchi presented the death mask of Napoleon to the city of New Orleans shortly after he migrated in 1834. City officials displayed the mask in the Cabildo, along with the instruments Antommarchi had used at the autopsy of Napoleon.

Antommarchi practiced medicine in New Orleans until 1838, when he moved to Mexico.