Sometime in the late 19th Century—the year is debated—two friends noticed the body of a young woman, floating in the Seine. They fished it out and handed it over to French authorities, who delivered it to the morgue. There it was publicly displayed on a table behind a wall of glass, and passers-by were invited to attempt to identify it. Nobody could.

The body was fully dressed and there was no evidence of any violence whatever. The death was ruled a suicide—but why would a suicide’s face reveal such a serene expression? The morgue attendant was so intrigued by this enigmatic face that he created a death mask to preserve it, and from this he created several plaster casts.

These casts attracted the attention of the Parisian arts community—novelists, poets, painters (including the young Picasso)—who in turn popularized them among European collectors. The face of the "Unknown Woman Of the Seine" came to be almost as famous as the face of the Mona Lisa.

Recently I was able to find and purchase one of the original castings from a UK antiquities dealer, and this is my own portrait of the mysterious girl.

If you think you’re unfamiliar with this face, you may be mistaken: It’s the face that’s used on modern CPR practice dummies.