L'Inconnue de la Seine
ca. 1870s/1880s
A pre-internet viral meme
The story is told that the body
of a girl was pulled
from the Seine River in Paris, near the Louvre. There were no marks of
violence. She was presumed to have committed suicide by throwing herself off a bridge. The authorities
made a plaster cast of her face and distributed photos asking people for help identifying her. The public was so
taken
with the beauty and tranquility of her face that her death mask became
a popular memento mori all over Europe. By 1900, every person of a darkly emotional temperment had her face on display among their knick-knacks.
In 1960 they
put her face on CPR training dummies as an homage to her tragically
short life. "Resusci Anne" came to be called the most kissed face of
all time.
However, researchers can't seem to find
official documentation or press reports that a body with this face was
pulled from the Seine. And
her face would not look this pristine after any length of time floating
in the river, so no one knows where this face really came from.
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