Fibreglass or Plaster Replica of Ned Kelly Death Mask

Criminal Death Masks were primarily important in the 19th century as tools for the pseudoscience of Phrenology, which aimed to link skull shape to personality and criminal tendencies. By studying these Death Masks of criminals, phrenologists believed they could identify a "criminal type" and even predict future criminal behaviour. Phrenologists believed the skull's bumps and indentations revealed a person's personality, intelligence, and motivations. Studying the heads of executed criminals was a popular method to try and find a physiological basis for criminal behaviour and to prove the existence of a "criminal type".
In places like 19th-century Australia, public interest in executions meant crowds would gather to see the recreations of the heads of criminals displayed in waxworks for entertainment and to satisfy the moral consequences of crime against the authority of the Government. 

Ned Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on the morning of 11 November 1880. Immediately after his body was taken down

from the gallows, his hair and beard were shaved off and a Plaster Mould taken of his head by Maximilian Kreitmayer.

There may have been only one cast taken from this original plaster mould, which is the one located at the University of

Melbourne with partial neck, no shoulders and a mould seam-line dividing the frontal face, rather than the moulded seam-

line behind the ears and across the top of the head in the other Death Masks with full neck and with shoulders and neck, in

the collections of the State Library Victoria, the National Museum of Australia and the Canberra National Portrait Gallery.

Within Canberra’s National Museum Australia, ‘Dale White Collection’, a particularly unusual Ned Kelly Death Mask with

odd distortions in the casting is displayed. A similar Death Mask with distortions was owned by Edgar Penzig with the

inscription 2/20 on the back of the plaster cast. When these 20 replicas were cast is a mystery, but the distortion may be the

result of a flexible Latex Jacket Mould, made during the 1940’s or 1950’s by artist Max Meldrum (1875-1955) from an original Death Mask,

owned by John Molony, which was gifted to Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery in 2018. Where John Molony got his copy

of Ned Kelly's Death Mask is another mystery.

The Death Mask directly below is cast from the Edgar Penzig 2/20 original - so a direct ‘ownership from creation’ can be traced to the original Death Mask taken in 1880 via oral provenance.

To purchase a copy of this original Death Mask is $500 +GST. Postage and Handling costs are additional, as the costs will vary depending on Plaster weight, location and packaging durability.

The Death Mask directly below is a reconstructed sculpture with the distortions removed, making this sculptural rendition of Ned Kelly's Death Mask as close to accuracy as can be achieved without moulding the initial Death Mask taken in 1880.

To purchase a copy of this original Death Mask is $350 +GST. Postage and Handling costs are additional, as the costs will vary depending on Plaster weight, location and packaging durability.