Jane Doe
By Bradley Harper
I recently learned of a famous death mask that still has importance today. L’Inconnue de la Seine (The Unknown Woman of the Seine) is the death mask of a young woman, estimated at around 16 years of age, whose body was pulled from the River Seine along the Quai du Louvre in the late 1880s. There were no signs of violence, and the final cause of death was attributed to suicide by drowning. Her beauty so inspired the pathologist doing her autopsy that he made a death mask. Her body was put on public display in the morgue hoping someone could identify her, but no one stepped forward with a name.
The death mask was widely reproduced, and many famous artists, including Camus, were known to have reproductions of her face in their homes and studios, her ethereal beauty serving as a muse to inspire them. Many compared her mysterious smile with that of the Mona Lisa, residing within the Louvre that abuts the site of her death, and it is said that for a generation after her death, young German girls tried to emulate her look until Greta Garbo finally surpassed her as the paragon of beauty.
Many writers in various countries have attempted stories or poems where she is the principal character or is referred to in some way. The first attempt was by Richard Le Gallienne’s 1900 novella, The Worshipper of the Image, which involves an English poet obsessed with the mask, resulting in his daughter’s death and his wife’s suicide. The most recent reference was by Caitlin R. Kiernan in her 2012 novel, The Drowning Girl. A ballet was choreographed about her in 1963, and it did so well that it was featured in the American Ballet Theater in 1965.
Most artists have struggled to fully describe her wisp of pathos mixed with a quiet joy. I believe her expression epitomizes the word ineffable.
One American case has had a similar visual impact, that of the suicide of Evelyn McHale in 1947. Miss McHale took her life by leaping from the observation deck of the Empire State Building on May the first, and the photograph above was taken four minutes afterward by photography student Robert Wiles. The woman’s figure has been described as resting, or napping, rather than dead, and appears to be daydreaming of her fiancé, whom she was engaged to marry the following month. Per her wishes in the suicide note she left at the platform, her body was cremated, and no service was held for her. Her fiancé lived to a ripe old age and never married.
In 1958, Surgeon Peter Safar and rubber-toy maker Asmand Laerdal were collaborating on the creation of a training mannequin for teaching Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, and Laerdal chose the death mask of L’ Inconnue as the model for the face of the doll, saying that its expression would so affect the student that they would have an innate impulse to rescue her. Thus was born the mannequin we know today as Resusci Anne and her image has become the most-kissed face in history.
Bradley Harper is a retired US Army Colonel and pathologist who has performed over two-hundred autopsies and some twenty forensic death investigations. A life-long fan of Sherlock Holmes, he did intensive research for his debut novel, A Knife in the Fog, which involved a young Doctor Conan Doyle in the hunt for Jack the Ripper, including a trip to London’s East End with noted Jack the Ripper historian Richard Jones. Harper’s first novel was published in October 2018 and was a finalist for a 2019 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel by an American Author and is a Recommended Read by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate.
Knife went on to win Killer Nashville’s 2019 Silver Falchion as Best Mystery. The audio book, narrated by former Royal Shakespearean actor Matthew Lloyd Davies, won Audiofile Magazine’s 2019 Earphone award for Best Mystery and Suspense. The book is also available in Japan via Hayakawa Publishing.
His second novel, Queen’s Gambit, involving a fictional assassination attempt on Queen Victoria, Won Killer Nashville’s 2020 Silver Falchion Award twice, once for Best Suspense, and again as Book of the Year.
