There are no photographs of James Madison; however, John Henri Isaac Browere was able to capture his likeness in the form of a life mask.

Browere’s casting process utilized a proprietary plaster mixture that due to its lightweight nature did not distort the facial features of his subject’s face as the common plaster utilized by his contemporaries did. This by all accounts resulted in what was considered an extremely accurate likeness.

Browere met Madison at Madison’s Montpelier home in Orange Virginia in 1825 to make the casting. Madison was 74 years old at the time. James Madison said of his finished life mask, “Per request of Mr. Browere, busts of myself and of my wife, regarded as exact likenesses, have been executed by him in plaster, being casts made from the molds formed on our persons, of which this certificate is given under my hand at Montpelier, 19, October 1825.”

More info: yarbs.net

James Madison life mask cast by John Henri Isaac Browere in 1825

The initial reconstructed life mask was done using Photoshop and shows how Madison most likely appeared in 1825. Historical evidence shows Madison had started balding by his mid-thirties thus he is depicted with his widow’s peak comb-over pulled back into a queue.

Madison appears frail. He was a slightly built man and sickly most of his life. He stood just 5 feet 4 inches tall and rarely tipped the scales at much more than 100 pounds. His voice was so weak that people often had difficulty hearing his speeches.

Reconstructed Life Mask of James Madison and Madison Life Mask De-Aged

His advanced age did not make matters any better. His face is lined with wrinkles and his eyes are “blepharitic” (i.e. puffiness around the eyes). The life mask further reveals that one side of his face droops significantly indicating Madison may have had a stroke; however, this cannot be ascertained from the historical record.

In 1828, Margaret Bayard Smith, seeing Madison for the first time in ten years, noted “His little blue eyes sparkled like stars from under his bushy grey eyebrows and amidst the deep wrinkles of his poor thin face. Nor have they lost their look of mischief, that used to lurk in their corners.”

James Madison’s De-Aged Life Mask up close

Using Photoshop and AI technology I’ve attempted to “de-age” the reconstructed life mask of Madison by forty-plus years back to the age of 32. This age was chosen because it corresponds with the Charles Willson Peale painted portrait of Madison done of him at that age in 1783. The first order of business was to restore his face to a pre-stroke condition. That completed, the “de-aging” process was like any other. Using Peale’s work as a reference I styled Madison’s hair with loose bangs similar to the portrait. Madison’s hair at this stage of life would have been chestnut brown, but he powdered his hair white in the style of the day. Portraits of the younger Madison also show him with dark eyebrows.

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