This collection item is often described as a death-mask. It is not a death-mask, rather it is a life-mask made from a mould taken from the living face of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath, whose work spanned the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His influential ideas on plant and animal morphology and homology were extended and developed by 19th century naturalists including Charles Darwin. In politics Goethe was conservative and he served as a Privy Councillor of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe's works included: Faust which has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature; Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and The Sorrows of Young Werther. Carl Gottlieb Weisser (1779-1832) possibly took Goethe's life-mask on the 13th of October 1807 for the phrenologist F. J. Gall, who visited Goethe at Weimar. This is one of only two examples of Goethe's life-mask. It had been sent to Thomas Carlyle by J. P. Eckermann and hung in Carlyle's home for many years. On Carlyle's death it was presented to David Masson, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh, and on his death was given by the Masson family to Professor Hume Brown who in turn bequeathed it to Edinburgh University in 1918.
work_description
This collection item is often described as a death-mask. It is not a death-mask, rather it is a life-mask made from a mould taken from the living face of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath, whose work spanned the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His influential ideas on plant and animal morphology and homology were extended and developed by 19th century naturalists including Charles Darwin. In politics Goethe was conservative and he served as a Privy Councillor of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe's works included: Faust which has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature; Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and The Sorrows of Young Werther. Carl Gottlieb Weisser (1779-1832) possibly took Goethe's life-mask on the 13th of October 1807 for the phrenologist F. J. Gall, who visited Goethe at Weimar. This is one of only two examples of Goethe's life-mask. It had been sent to Thomas Carlyle by J. P. Eckermann and hung in Carlyle's home for many years. On Carlyle's death it was presented to David Masson, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh, and on his death was given by the Masson family to Professor Hume Brown who in turn bequeathed it to Edinburgh University in 1918.
Description
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