Undying Faces: A Collection Of Death Masks

This book is a translation from the German edition of Das Ewige Antlitz. Death masks command our utmost reverence, for the face is symbolic and perpetuates the final impression of a human spirit whom we once knew, or who had made his mark on all men's minds. This work endeavors to assemble and collate material from the widest possible field. As the reader glances through the illustrations, he will at once notice a limitation. There is no mask dating from antiquity and the question of the use of death masks in those ages is not dealt with. The material as such obliged the author to adopt this restriction in order to confine the subject within some bounds. Therefore it only embraces the Christian culture of the West and of that period, only from about 1400 up to the present day.