Off with his Hood

Through the myth of the executioner’s mask, Alison Kinney explores our tortured relationship with life, death, mortality and museums.

The Tower of London’s ‘executioner’s mask’.

There is an ‘executioner’s mask’ in the Tower of London, with a spooky, lopsided grin. The mask was dismissed in the 1970s as a Victorian fake, based on a scold’s bridle. The description of it in the current Royal Armouries blog reads:

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