Side 1: Head of old woman.
Side 2: Skull; toads; worms; vermin.
Foliated decoration.
Inscription: 'O MORS QUAM AMARA EST MEMORIA TUA' (O Death, how bitter it is to be reminded of you).
Randall 1993: North French or South Netherlandish, 1500-1525.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of polychromy.
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
Pierced vertically for suspension.
Provenance
Bought from Blumka II Gallery, New York, in 1990, Founders Society Purchase (European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Insurance Recovery Fund, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts General Fund, General Art Purchase Fund, Mr. and Mrs Robert Hamilton Fund, and contributions from Mr. and Mrs Robert Hamilton and the David L. Klein Jr. Memorial Foundation).
Bibliography
P. Barnet, 'Selected recent acquisitions', in Bulletin of the Detroit Institute 66, no. 4 (1991), p. 50.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by P. Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, no. 78.
A. Darr and T. Albainy, 'Acquisitions of European sculpture and decorative arts at the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1988 - 1999', in The Burlington Magazine 142 (June 2000), p. 406, no. IV (with ill.).
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