A history of the death mask, this collection contains several illustration plates. A fascinating exploration of the process of making a death mask and of the artifact's social value. The introduction also reflects on the role of the face in demonstrating and communicating personality, and there is a possible source in this book for the "waxwork figure" metaphor that Virginia Woolf uses repeatedly in her own writings to describe Victorian biographical subjects. This book was grouped in the 1939 catalogue in 'Art and Music,' presumably because of the illustration plates and because of the attention to technical detail in the making of the masks.