In a box on the second floor of the atelier is its most precious possession: a 19th-century, chestnut-brown plaster mold of a death mask that is said to be that of L’Inconnue.

“You ask me if my great-grandfather made the mold himself, and I don’t know,” said Laurent Lorenzi Forestier, who runs the family business. “You ask me how the morgue organized the casting of the mold, and I don’t know. What I do know is that we have a mold from that period in time.”

L’Inconnue’s face is serene. Her cheeks are round and full, her skin smooth, her eyelashes matted to give the impression that they are still wet. Her hair is parted in the middle and pulled back behind her neck. She is young, perhaps still a teenager. She is pleasant-looking, but not classically beautiful.

It is the mystery of her half-smile that haunts. Her lips lack definition, perhaps the result of her body’s deterioration. She seems happy in death or maybe only asleep. And her eyes look as if they might open at any time.