Death Mask of Peter I, Bronze Cast of 1894

This is an 1894 bronze cast of the death mask of Peter I taken by the sculptor Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli in 1725. It conveys the emperor’s features as they were on the day of his death.

Peter I died in St Petersburg on 28 January (8 February) 1725. That same day Rastrelli was summoned to the palace: he took plaster casts of the emperor’s face, hands and feet and made precise measurements of his body. The cast of the face was later reproduced in bronze. Rastrelli, a Florentine who had arrived in St Petersburg in 1716, knew the tsar’s appearance well: back in 1717 he had taken a life mask from Peter, from which in 1721 he made a plaster head later used for the “Wax Person”, a sculptural likeness of the emperor.

The State Historical Museum’s example was cast in 1894 after Rastrelli’s model of 1725. It reproduces the form taken from Peter’s face on the day of his death.