This really compelling sculpture is in fact the death mask cast from the dead body of Ned Kelly after his execution at the age of 25 for murder in Melbourne jail. In a sense, Kelly and the story of the Kelly gang really stands in the mythology of the colonial experience for the highly contested story of the interaction of the Irish in Australia with the British colonial authorities.
Kelly's trial was presided over by Judge Redmond Barry, who was himself one of the most remarkable pioneers of Melbourne society, involved in every branch of cultural and artistic life. That collision between Barry and Kelly is one of the defining dramatic moments of Australian cultural history, which has passed, of course, into myth.
