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                    Links 
                    
                    
		    
                    
		    
		      
			Subject 
			Secular. Memento Mori. 
		       
		    
		    
		    
                      
		      
			
			  Repository Institution
 www.metmuseum.org
                         
		      
                      
		      
			
                        To purchase an image
 www.metmuseum.org
                         
		      
                     
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			 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 
		      
                      
		      
			17.190.306 
		      
                    
		     
                      
		      
                      
		      
                      
		      
                     
		     
                      
		      
			 Ivory;silver;partially gilded mounts 
		      
                      
                      
		      
			Height: 627mm Width: 54mm Depth: 45mm (overall); Top Terminal 
		      
                      
                    
		     
                      
		      
			 Primary beads with parted faces  
Parted faces: face of tonsured priest or monk; face of bearded tonsured cleric; skull; vermin; worms (Death). 
Smaller beads with 2 faces 
Busts of men and women in profile, contemporary costume. Skeleton in bust; scroll with engraved inscription 'COGITA MORI' ('Think to die'). Skeleton in bust; scroll with engraved inscription 'SV QVOT ERIS' (i.e. 'SVM QVOD ERIS', 'I am what you will be').  
Foliated decoration. 
		      
                      
                      
		      
                    
		     
                      
		      
			   Ann Arbor 1975: Germany, early 16th century. 
Museum's opinion 2012: Germany, c. 1500-1525. 
		      
		     
                      
		     
		    
		    
		      
		      
			
			  Attribution 
			  Unknown
			 
		      
		      
		      
                      
		      
                      
                      
		      
			
			  Reverse 
			  Carved in the round.
			 
		      
                      
                      
		      
			
			  Object Condition 
			  Missing: beads.
			 
		      
                      
                      
		      
                      
                      
		      
			
			  Provenance 
			  Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan (d. 1913), New York and London; estate of J. Pierpont Morgan (1913-1917); gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.
			 
		      
                      
                      
		      
			
			  Bibliography 
			  Images of Love and Death in Renaissance and Late Medieval Art, exhibition catalogue, ed. by W. R. Levin, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, November 1975-January 1976, no. 83, pl. LXIII. 
R. H. Randall, Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery (New York, 1985), p. 248 (in relation to no. 368). 
P. Williamson, 'Medieval Ivory Carvings in the Wernher Collection', in Apollo (May 2002), pp. 17-22 (p. 21, fig. 17). 
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), p. 474, fig. 1, in relation to no. 164.
			 
		      
		     
		     
		    
		      Image
		     
		    
		      
		     
		      
			Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photograph by Thomas Vinton, Medieval Art and The Cloisters.
		         
		      
		      
		      
		     
		    All images on this website are made available exclusively for scholarly and educational purposes and may not be used commercially. 
		    
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