Two days after the death of Egon Schiele in 1918, Gustinus Ambrosi, a young admiring sculptor, arrived at his coffin, opened it up, and made a mold of the man’s face. Though Ambrosi would memorialize Schiele’s eternal expression, in life, the two men had never met.
At the time, Vienna was wracked with a Spanish Flu epidemic and in a later letter, Ambrosi would recall arriving on a crisp November morning and removing the painter’s collar and tie to make the mold for the death mask. Ambrosi would go on to make four copies of the mask: one for himself, one for Schiele’s mother, one for Arthur Roessler (an art critic who first recognized Schiele’s talent), and one for his publisher Richard Lanyi.
Gustinus Ambrosi, The Death Mask of Egon Schiele (1918). Photo: Sloane Street Auctions.
A bronze mask is set to appear at Sloane Street Auctions in London on October 23, where it is expected to fetch between £1,000 and £2,000 ($1,300 and $2,600).
While there is no previous record of the mask selling at auction, a plaster cast rests with the Leopold Museum in Vienna, where Ambrosi remains a well-respected 20th-century sculptor. After attending Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, Ambrosi became a sought portraitist in the inter-war period, who represented Austria at the 1925 Biennale in Rome, alongside Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. More than 600 of Ambrosi’s sculptures were destroyed by Allied bombing in Vienna in 1945.
Gustinus Ambrosi, The Death Mask of Egon Schiele (1918). Photo: Sloane Street Auctions.
Ambrosi’s The Death Mask of Egon Schiele (1918) is one nearly 600 lots set to hit the block as part of Sloane Street Auctions’ “20th Century, Modern and Old Masters, Islamic and Asian Art and Jewellery” sale. As suggested by the title, the offerings are extremely broad ranging from art deco jewelry, to Persian rugs, to dinnerware from Damien Hirst’s short-lived restaurant Pharmacy.
Among the leading lots are a 19th-century Louis XV-style piano painted with allegorical figures and landscapes estimated at £20,000 to £40,000 ($25,900 to $51,900), a Joaquín Sorolla study for a painting of Queen Maria Christina swearing over the constitution estimated at £15,000 to £25,000 ($19,400 to $32,500), and an 18th-century Chinese wooden bodhisattva estimated at £10,000 to £20,000 ($10,300 and $20,600).
“We are delighted with this catalogue, which has some real rarities and truly fine examples of work by leading artists of their respective periods,” the auction house’s Daniel Hunt said in a statement.