Death Masks

In the Victorian era the denial of purgatory after the Protestant Reformation had left the dying with the stark choice between heaven and hell. Victorian Evangelicalism gave extra weight to this choice as the moment of death signified the culmination of one’s preparations for death and the moment of divine judgement. Evangelical death was not to be handled lightly.

Good Death: In the early part of the Victorian era people idealised the notion of an end slow enough end to their lives to give the dying the chance to say goodbye to their families and to prepare themselves spiritually and for this all important moment. Families would cluster around bedsides, hoping to catch profound last words of their loved ones or witness religious raptures before death. The reality however was less romantic, leading many to comment on how rare that much romanticised rapture was. Indeed by the late Victorian period people had largely discarded these notions, hoping instead for quick, painless deaths over melodramatic, drawn out affairs.

Mourning:                                                                                                                                               After Queen Victoria's husband died she went into mourning for several years, and only wore black to show her mourning her husband, because of this it became a thing to wear mouring dresses after a loved one had past away. People would wear these outfits for up to two and half years, the outfits for male mourning attire was fairly simple: mourning coats early on in the period and black bands on their hats and black gloves later. Women’s mourning attire would often consist of a black crepe dress, complete with black caps and even black ribbons tied to the underwear.

Death Masks:                                                                                                                                         A death mask is created shortly after their death, the mask is created out of either clay or wax . The masks may be used for either mementos of their loved ones or for creations for portraits.  These masks were also used for the facial features of unidentified bodies were sometimes preserved by creating death masks so that relatives of the dead could recognize them if they were seeking a missing person.

                                           

Below is verson of a death mask: