Death mask of a person with microcephaly
This death mask of a person with the learning disability microcephaly was likely created as a teaching aid for the 19th-century pseudoscience of phrenology. Categorizing disabled people as 'lesser' and 'other' through scientific study reinforced eugenical hierarchies and further diminished the position of disabled people in society.
Death masks were created to aid the study and teaching of phrenology, a practice which identified certain head shapes and features with personality types or criminal tendencies. Now understood as a pseudoscience, phrenology is no longer practiced.
Whilst the names of many death masks of infamous criminal were recorded, masks cast from disabled people, especially those with learning disabilities were not. These people were used to represent certain categories rather than being displayed as individuals.