These plaster casts were made from the sculpture in Westminster Abbey (by William and Cornelius Cure, 1606-16). They were commissioned by the Elkington firm of Birmingham in order to make ‘electrotype’ versions – made of metal. The Italian cast-maker Domenico Brucciani took the cast in 1870. While the web is full of this image described as ‘the death mask of Mary Queen of Scots’ this is not the case!