Side 1: Bust of a young man (Youth). Carved inscription: 'AMOR M(un)DI' (Love of the World) and 'w' on the brim of his hat, possibly standing for '[aujourd]WI', meaning today or now.
Side 2: Monstrous figure with lolling tongue (devil?). Hairy monster with gaping mouth. Incised inscription: 'SEQUERE ME' (Follow me).
Side 3: Bust of an old man (Old Age). Incised inscription: 'VADO MORI' (I am going to die).
Side 4: Bust of skeleton (Death) holding an hourglass in his right hand and bending his left arm around to touch the chest of the old man; vermin; worms; snail; toad. Incised inscription: 'EGO SUM' (I am).
Longhurst 1929: Flanders or France (North), 1st half of the 16th century.
Cologne 2006: Northern Netherlands or Northern France (?), c. 1525-1550.
Williamson and Davies 2014: Northern French or South Netherlandish, c. 1520-30.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy: red and black (inscriptions).
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
Pendant pierced vertically for suspension.
Jaw and upper part of the chest of the skeleton; young man's beaker chipped.
Provenance
Collection of Ralph Bernal, MP, 93 Eaton Square, London (b. 1783, d. 1854): his sale, Christie's, March 1855, lot 1635; bought by the Museum at this sale.
Bibliography
Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition (London, 1868), p. 67.
W. Maskell, Ivories Ancient and Mediaeval in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. 6.
A. Maskell, Ivories (Connoisseurs Library)(London, 1905), p. 188.
F. Parkes-Weber, Aspects of Death and Correlated Aspects of Life, 3rd ed. (London, 1918), p. 715, fig. 138.
F. Weber and E. Holländer, Des Todes Bild. Aspects of death in art, epigram and poetry (Berlin, 1923).
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), pp. 69-70.
L. Müller, 'Eine französische Buchscholzfigur des 16. Jahrhunderts im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg', in Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik: Festschrift Theodor Müller zum 19 April 1965 (Munich, 1965), pp. 245-252.
Zum Sterben schön! Alter, Totentanz und Sterbekunst von 1500 bis heute, ed. by A. von Hülsen-Esch and H. Westermann-Angerhausen, Cologne, Schnütgen Museum, 2006, no. 38.
G. Davies and K. Kennedy (eds.), Medieval and Renaissance Art. People and Possessions (London, 2009), pp. 228, 229, pl. 174.
E. Townsend, Death and Art: Europe 1200-1530 (London, 2009), p. 9, pl. 1.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 163.
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