Death mask of Oliver Cromwell

Plaster copy of Oliver Cromwell’s death mask
“I saw him dead, a leaden slumber lyes And mortall sleep over those wakefull eys ... Yet dwelt that greatnesse in his shape decay’d That still though dead greater than death he lay’d ...”

Andrew Marvell, A Poem Upon the Death of O. C.

This plaster copy of the death mask of Oliver Cromwell illustrates well Andrew Marvell’s lyrical eyewitness account. Something of the man’s charisma can still be gleaned from the white, plaster features. There is somehow a sense of sleep having closed those eyes.

The original wax mask, of which this is a plaster copy, was probably taken as a model for Cromwell's funeral effigy. He had died on 3 September 1658, and his corpse had been quietly buried in Westminster Abbey on 10 November. But, despite refusing to take on the title of king in his own lifetime, he was accorded elaborate funeral rites based upon those that had marked the passing of King James I in 1625.