The son of Pieter Grobler (1857 - 1942), Willie, asked his friend Fanie Eloff to create a sculpture of his father after his death. Eloff created this death mask, a physical casting of the face of the deceased. The work was never cast by the artist at the time, and a resin copy was commissioned by the University of Pretoria in 2011 to Guy du Toit, as the only existing original plaster death mask was deteriorating to such an extent that it was disintegrating.