Lot 18

MEMENTO MORI

The memento mori is a moral principle, often quoted in the Middle Ages and early modern period, then ubiquitous in the Baroque period, which warns man never to forget his transience, the finitude of his and worldly goods. The rare gilded wood sculpture on offer depicts this theme through a skeleton on which the last remnants of tendons remain. Holding a scythe and an hourglass, he sits on a plinth that, like the human body, is subject to decay - the falling plaster revealing the masonry of the architecture. Very good state of preservation.