Stalin death mask goes on sale
Tags:
The death mask of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin goes on sale in Britain on Tuesday.
The guide price for a set of bronze casts of Stalin's face and both hands is between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds ($4,600 to $7,700), British auction house Mullock's said on its website.
"It is the closest you could come to having Stalin in your living room," said the auction house's historical documents expert Richard Westwood-Brooks.
The cast is one of several copies taken from the original plaster cast taken after Stalin's death in 1953.
The original plaster cast is still on display at the Stalin museum in his native Gori in Georgia.
Two copies were brought to the West in 1990 by art dealer James Birch, one of the first to break through to the art market.
A bronze death mask of Stalin's went on sale in Sotheby's in 1999 with a guide price of 1,000 to 1,500 pounds, Newstatesman.com reported.
Stalin died at the age of 74, after more than two decades at the helm of the Soviet Union. The official cause of death was cerebral haemorrhage but alternative theories speculate he might have been poisoned by his associates.
This is not Mullock's first stint with memorabilia of dead dictators. In 2009 and 2010, the house put two sets of aquarelles (water-colour paintings) by Adolf Hitler up for sale.
Post new comment