Block on rare Napoleon death mask leaving UK

An export ban has been placed on a rare Napoleon Bonaparte “death mask” in the hope that a British buyer can be found for the “macabre” object.

The plaster mask was sold for £175,000 to an overseas buyer earlier this year by a descendant of the brother of its original owner, Reverend Richard Boys. He was a chaplain on the Atlantic island of St Helena in May 1821 when the exiled French emperor died.

Leslie Webster, a member of a government committee which advised Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, about the mask, said it has “a power and immediacy that raises the hairs on the back of the neck”....