A death mask of Leo Tolstoy was added to the memorabilia at the Rabindra Bhavana Museum in Santiniketan this week.

Officials at Visva-Bharati said the death mask — cast in plaster from corpses for posterity — had been in their possession for years. It was showcased last week ahead of a visit by President Ram Nath Kovind on November 11. The item was gifted to Rabindranath Tagore during a tour of the USSR in 1930.

“We kept this special item for the President’s visit. We are confident it will add to the unique items in the museum,” said Rabindra Bhavana special officer Nilanjan Banerjee.

Although Tagore (1861-1941) never met Tolstoy (1828-1910), sources at Visva-Bharati said he was an admirer of the Russian litterateur’s work and owned several of his books.

“There are several letters drawn from Tagore’s collections in the early 1900s that mention Tolstoy’s writings. In one such letter, he writes that he was keen on reading a book called What is Art? by Tolstoy, which had been recommended to him by his nephew Surendranath,” said Tagore researcher Amitra Sudan Bhattacharya.

While the polymath Tagore was the first non-European winner of the Nobel Prize (for Literature) in 1913, Tolstoy never having received the prize — despite multiple nominations in Literature every year between 1902 and 1906 and for Peace in 1901, 1902 and 1910 — remains a major controversy.

Tolstoy — the grand patriarch of Russian literature — is regarded widely as one of the greatest authors of all time.

“Tagore made a much-anticipated 13-day trip to USSR in 1930, on the invitation of a diplomat and was deeply moved by his experiences there. A contingent of artists over there had gifted him this mask in gratitude,” said Bhattacharya.