I've seen some of 'Glory and Terror', and apparently Hector Fleischmann also makes a case against it, though I don't know in which book or what the case is. Thompson refers to several different death masks, though most I've seen appear to be the same cast, differently made up, and if attributed at all, attributed to Tussaud....(except one, that looks like Alain Delon with a shot jaw!) but...I still don't think it would have been impossible to make the cast, with a bit of bribery! I've seen references to the auction of Robespierre and Saint-Just's possessions, several months later, including two (sometimes three!) 'bloodstained' coats allegedly belonging to the brothers and allegedly worn on 9/10th Thermidor, and sold for 800 livres - they'd have been more relaxed about selling relics by that point, but it does suggest that the order to obliterate Robespierre wasn't strictly followed in all quarters.
However, it doesn't have a jaw wound, and it isn't swollen, as you'd expect after 17 hours or so of injury. This is odd because, if it was sculpted- rather than cast- posthumously for a post Thermidor exhibit, you'd expect them to make much of the world- famous injury, and make it look satisfyingly hideous and contorted with pain. Having your life-mask made was fashionable (Washington had his done while alive, and whilst it was uncomfortable a lot of people went through with it to be immortalised!) and I'd expect it's possible Tussaud may have requested to make a cast from life, and then embellished the story to the gorier severed-head version when she moved to London. To add to the confusion, though, I've also come across a reference to a 'date unknown' life mask of Robespierre by Jean-Antoine Houdon. It was Houdon who took the plaster cast of Washington, whilst making a scuplture of him, and made life and death masks and sculptures in Paris during the revolution, though I've never seen a picture of his life mask of Robespierre - does it exist? Did it survive? Maybe Tussaud 'borrowed' it, and that's the one, Houdon's, with added blood and bandages, on the spike in various Chambers of Horrors?
This one, which is the one I've seen billed as the 'Tussaud' one http://oocradio.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-mask-tuesday-enemies-within-ed.html (that photo seems to have been done with a wide angle lens!) does seem to be a cast of a face - the eyelids shut (in death, or to keep out the plaster? - surely a clay sculptor would model them open if working from a sitter or a sketch), the eyebrows are messy, rather than neat as you'd expect from a head modelled in clay, there are pockmarks,etc. and the bone and muscle structure correspond closely to the famous stripey Carnavalet portrait...it would be interesing to project a slide over it to see if it matched! - though that also leaves the question of the source and date of the anonymous oil portrait! (What if one was done from the other!?) I've read that one of their portraits came from David D'Angers' estate, and he was given it by Souberbielle, who was given it by Robespierre - great story if true...but nothing's ever certain in this field!
So, after that very messy theorising...I think life mask, but I wouldn't stake my life on it!
Have you come across the story that Danton had his wife dug up so one of the Deseine brothers could make a clay model of her face? If it's true, does the model survive?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-09-16 04:03 pm (UTC)However, it doesn't have a jaw wound, and it isn't swollen, as you'd expect after 17 hours or so of injury.
This is odd because, if it was sculpted- rather than cast- posthumously for a post Thermidor exhibit, you'd expect them to make much of the world- famous injury, and make it look satisfyingly hideous and contorted with pain.
Having your life-mask made was fashionable (Washington had his done while alive, and whilst it was uncomfortable a lot of people went through with it to be immortalised!) and I'd expect it's possible Tussaud may have requested to make a cast from life, and then embellished the story to the gorier severed-head version when she moved to London.
To add to the confusion, though, I've also come across a reference to a 'date unknown' life mask of Robespierre by Jean-Antoine Houdon. It was Houdon who took the plaster cast of Washington, whilst making a scuplture of him, and made life and death masks and sculptures in Paris during the revolution, though I've never seen a picture of his life mask of Robespierre - does it exist? Did it survive? Maybe Tussaud 'borrowed' it, and that's the one, Houdon's, with added blood and bandages, on the spike in various Chambers of Horrors?
This one, which is the one I've seen billed as the 'Tussaud' one http://oocradio.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-mask-tuesday-enemies-within-ed.html (that photo seems to have been done with a wide angle lens!) does seem to be a cast of a face - the eyelids shut (in death, or to keep out the plaster? - surely a clay sculptor would model them open if working from a sitter or a sketch), the eyebrows are messy, rather than neat as you'd expect from a head modelled in clay, there are pockmarks,etc. and the bone and muscle structure correspond closely to the famous stripey Carnavalet portrait...it would be interesing to project a slide over it to see if it matched! - though that also leaves the question of the source and date of the anonymous oil portrait! (What if one was done from the other!?) I've read that one of their portraits came from David D'Angers' estate, and he was given it by Souberbielle, who was given it by Robespierre - great story if true...but nothing's ever certain in this field!
So, after that very messy theorising...I think life mask, but I wouldn't stake my life on it!
Have you come across the story that Danton had his wife dug up so one of the Deseine brothers could make a clay model of her face? If it's true, does the model survive?