Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/330

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1056
UNKNOWN LIFE MASKS OF GREAT AMERICANS.

JAMES MADISON. AGE 74. FROM THE ORIGINAL BUST FROM A LIFE MASK TAKEN AT MONTPELIER, OCTOBER 19, 1825, BY J. H. I. BROWERE. FIRST PHOTOGRAPHED AND ENGRAVED FOR McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

and direct opposition from his brother artists, who maligned his pretensions because he was honest enough to call his method "a process." Surely, judging from results, it was superior to any other method of obtaining a life mask, and therefore it is most unfortunate that his "process" has to be counted among "the lost arts;" for neither he nor his son, who was acquainted with both the composition and the method of applying it, has left a word of information on the subject.

When the public press attacked Browere for his rumored maltreatment of President Jefferson, he replied: "Mr. Browere never has followed and never will follow the usual course, knowing it to be fallacious and absolutely bad. The manner in which he executes portrait busts from life is unknown to all but himself, and the invention is his own, for which he claims exclusive rights, but it is infinitely milder than the usual course."

That Browere's method of taking life casts was accomplished without discomfort to the subject is fully attested by the number of persons who submitted to it, as also by the certificates that exist from Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Lafayette, Gilbert Stuart, and others. Notwithstanding this, the report of the discomfort suffered by the venerable Jefferson was so