Peter Malone’s fascination with death masks began at the tender age of six, when he found himself face to face with Oliver Cromwell’s death mask at Southampton’s Bargate Museum.
The deep crags and crevices of the Lord Protector’s face made a lasting impression on Peter, inspiring him to build the collection that now fills the walls of his Georgian home in Bath, which he shares with his wife, Helen.
The couple met at art school, where Peter studied illustration (his work includes Christmas stamps for the Royal Mail, children’s books and illustrations in The New Yorker). Helen has since moved into conservation and is now a senior conservator at a national museum in London.
The practice of making death masks can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, and plaster moulds of the dead continued to be made throughout the 1800s, their popularity gradually waning in the early 20th century. Peter is particularly fascinated by casts of ‘dignitaries and worthies’, and likens his search for them as being a bit like ‘big game hunting’.
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He talks of how his obsession has led him all over Europe – from the depths of Parisian flea markets to museums and libraries – on the trail of specific faces, and to research their history. Helen adds that her husband doesn’t see ‘wear or tear, he sees faded glory’.
The worn and faded faces of note that share their home include Antoine Richard (who was Louis XVI’s gardener at Versailles), Chopin, Nelson and two different masks of Keats, which he found in a bookshop in Bath. He also has an example of one of the most famous death masks: L’Inconnue de la Seine – a drowned woman whose identity has never been discovered.
As well as death masks, the house is filled with plaster and marble busts, relief friezes and architectural mouldings. Colour in the form of large kilims and rugs, paired with shades of pale green, pink and cream, bring it all to life.
Their collections continue in the couple’s his and hers studios: Helen’s studio contains every pigment, colourant and tincture available under the sun to aid her in her work, while, in Peter’s, deep red walls are hung with large and absorbing paintings.
Peter admits his cast obsession is difficult to escape, likening it to a kind of madness. ‘You have to keep collecting,’ he says of the compulsion. ‘I often dream about flea markets that go on forever and ever and wonder, is this what hell is like?’ But he says he also dreams of stark, empty, minimalist rooms.
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Even so, the couple’s collecting is not out of control: ‘We only collect what we like,’ they say, explaining that they ‘adore the juxtaposition between old and new’, fascinated by the history of each item. ‘An object should give up its secrets and tell a story and then it becomes much more intriguing,’ says Peter, who has also studied the technical process of creating casts and even made his own mask, in life though – not death!
Helen poured the plaster and Peter’s face now hangs in the kitchen. Further experiments in casting have resulted in the magnificent display of leaves that greets visitors to their home.
All were taken from foliage gathered within a five-mile radius of the house and cleverly hung
so they appear to float along the wall.
Helen is fascinated by tiles and has built a collection from the Ottoman Empire – some Syrian, some Persian – dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. Glazed in luminous greens and blues, with flashes of pink and yellow, they decorate the walls in the bathroom and kitchen.
They provide a colourful visual link between the sculptural collections and the couple’s paintings, which include vibrant abstracts by Howard Hodgkin, for whom Peter worked in the 1980s.
petermaloneillustration.com
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