The original Life Mask was completed in December 1816 by Benjamin Robert Haydon. According to him "it was like preparing to cut off a man's head. His hair was swept back under a towel that was then furled tightly around his ears and neck". His skin would be greased, eyes and mouth shut, breathing through straws in his nostrils. The original was owned by John Hamilton Reynolds and on his death it passed to his sister Charlotte (b.1802) who bequeathed it to the NPG in 1883. Keatscircle