a wax or plaster cast of a mold taken from the face of a deceased person
Cast made of face after death, used in ancient Rome by actors to play the dead and by Europeans to adorn the buried corpse. Madame Tussaud of Wax Museum fame started out making death masks of those killed by the guillotine during the French Revolution.
A death mask is a plaster or wax cast made of a person's face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. It is sometimes possible to identify portraits that have been painted from death masks, because of the characteristic slight distortions of the features caused by the weight of the plaster during the making of the mould.