ARTIFACT IMAGE
Death mask Item Info
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- Title:
- Death mask
- Date:
- 19th century
- Description:
- Plaster death mask of Elias Hicks, accompanied by facsimile of newspaper article about death mask.
- Marks/Inscriptions :
- N/A
- Geographies:
- North and Central America, United States, New York
- Material:
- Plaster
- Provenance:
- Anonymous
- Material History:
- Plaster was a common molding material during the 19th century. when poured, it sets qucikly and captures small details.
- Quaker connection:
- Mask depicting Quaker Elias Hicks
- Object Story, Consumption and Use:
- This plaster death mask of Elias Hicks, a highly influential 19th-century Quaker, was created immediately after his death, providing a final impression of his face and preserving part of his body in material form. Death masks were a popular practice during the 1800s to remember someone. This type of object, which was once most likely displayed or cherished in a home, became an artifact observed by many at the Friends Historical Library. The death mask not only tells a story about how they were crafted, but also emphasizes the use of an impression of the body to create a material remembrance.This object challenges typical Quaker material culture. In the 1800s, Quakers generally avoided using material objects like portraits or death masks for remembrance because these practices were seen as luxurious and not aligned with Quaker simplicity. Hicks was also against these ideas, refusing to have his portrait taken throughout his life. Yet his role as a symbolic Hicksite leader prompted followers to seek a physical likeness of his face. The origin of this mask is also controversial, as it was made by an unknown Italian sculptor who secretly molded his bust from Hicks’s body, leaving pieces of plaster attached to Elias Hicks. Due to this initial plaster cast, numerous recreations and portraits were made from his death mask, creating a lasting material remembrance. Not only does this mask serve as a preserved material memory of Elias Hicks, but it also signifies a shift in 19th-century Quaker attitudes toward materiality and the body. Followers of Hicks saw him as the symbol of the Hicksite movement and began to remember him through material forms such as portraits.
- Research Sources:
- 1. Bliss Forbush, Elias Hicks, Prophet of an Era,” Bulletin of Friends’ Historical Association, volume 38, Number 1, Spring 1949 2. Death mask of Elias Hicks, 1830, plaster, accession SC-FHL-R-0242. Friends Historical, 3. Swarthmore College. TriArte, Bryn Mawr/Moore/Lang Collections database. 4. Emma Jones Lapsansky, “From Plainness to Simplicity: Changing Quaker Ideals for Material Culture,” in Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption, 1720-1920, edited by Emma Jones Lapsansky and Anne A. Verplanck (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). 5. Ernst Benkard, Undying Faces: A Collection of Death Masks, trans Margaret Wing (London: The Hogarth Press, 1929) 6.“Henry W. Wilbur, The Life and Labors of Elias Hicks (Philadelphia: Friends’ General Conference Advancement Committee, 1910). Robert W. Doherty. “A Response to Orthodoxy: The Hicksite Movement in the Society of Friends.” Church History 30, no. 2 (1961): 229-246 4.1 7. Roger, Homan. “The Art of Joseph Edward Southall.” Quaker Studies 5, no. 1 (2000): 69-83 The Discipline of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, Held in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1806)
- Type:
- Image;StillImage
- Format:
- image/jpg
- Accession Number:
- SC-FHL-R-0242
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Death mask", From Local to Global - Consumption and the Quaker Body, Swarthmore College, https://swat-ds.github.io/material-culture/material-culture/items/mc011.html