Browse Items (24 total)

Gender perspective: A single image of Death in the form of a skeleton threatens the two lovers. The skeleton's skull is covered and has long hair, normally female attributes, while playing the violin, normally a male attribute, like the man with the…

"A string of beads is used as a memory aid in the recitation of the rosary, a multipart devotion to the Virgin. Here, the striking terminal bead announces the constant proximity of death by joining a skull to the pair of vivacious lovers. Such an…

"Bead from a chaplet or rosary; carved ivory with traces of red and black paint. Formed of four half-length figures placed back to back. One represents a young man in the costume of the time with cap turned up and jewelled and a fur-collared jacket…

"This is an ivory memento mori, depicting a male head, a female head, and a skull conjoined. First this bead appears to have be made in the first half of the 16th century, but is made in the 19th century in France, probably Paris." (Description from…

"At the bottom, the memento mori pendant consists of three conjoined heads, a bearded man with wreath, a skull with worms curling out from his mouth, also with wreath, and a young woman with plaited and knotted hair. Where their heads meet above…

The engraving portrays a young couple looking at each other. Behind them, a tree trunk. Peeking out of the tree and staring at the couple, a skeleton holding an hourglass. Gender perspective: In this engraving death represented by the skeleton is the…

"For disobeying God’s orders and eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve received the punishment of mortality, hard work, and pain. A skeleton, an obvious symbol of death, forms the trunk of the fatal tree, and…

Original title: Dans van de Dood ("Dance of Death").This painting by Gestina ter Borch (image 1) was inspired by a lost design of a dagger by Hans Holbein the Younger. Image 2 represents another copy of Holbein's design by unknown (1523, c.). Images…

The image represents the Heathen and his wife on the left holding hands. On the right, a skeleton with a veil and breasts looks at the couple and holds the Heathen's hand. The skeleton is thus represented as female but attends to both genders the…

These images represent a Noblewoman and her husband holding hands while a skeleton plays the drums near them. The skeleton in the first three images is presented with hair, a traditionally feminine trait, whereas it appears without it in the last…