The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00238

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21002

We often imagine the Renaissance as an age of exceptional human progress and artistic achievement. But, intriguingly, macabre images proliferated in precisely this period: unsettling depictions of Death personified, of decaying bodies, of young lovers struck down in their prime. These morbid themes run riot in the remarkable array of artworks featured in The Ivory Mirror. Nearly 200 artworks—from ivory prayer beads to gem-encrusted jewelry to exquisitely carved small sculptures—present us with an aspect of this era that is at once darker and more familiar than we might have expected. Focused on the challenge of making choices in an increasingly complex and uncertain world, Renaissance artists turned to poignant, often macabre imagery to address the critical human concern of acknowledging death, while striving to create a personal legacy that might outlast it. The essays gathered here discuss the development and significance of this transformative art of the past, while exploring themes that are still relevant today: how does one navigate the implicit tension between mortality and morality and seek to balance individual pleasure with the pursuit of a greater good?

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal*

Author

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Print publication date September 2017 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300225952

EISBN 9780300260007

Illustrations 161

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

List of illustrations

Chaplet
Bead in a Chaplet
Bead in a Chaplet
Finial of a Chaplet
Finial of a Chaplet
Book of Hours, use of Rome (Heures, a lusaige de Rome)
Portrait of Machtelt Suijs
Burial Service
The Cemetery and Church of the Innocents
Burial Service
Burial Service
Cemetery
The Astrologer and the Bourgeois
Dance of Death: The Nun
The Temptation of Avarice
The Angel's Counsel against Avarice
Young Man with a Skull
Skeleton with arrow and black mirror
Office of the Dead
The Three Living
The Three Dead
The narrator in a graveyard, looking at himself in a mirror, which shows his reflection in the company of an allegory of Death
Memento Mori pendant
Memento Mori pendant
Memento Mori pendant
Antonio Siciliano and Saint Anthony, detail
Antonio Siciliano and Saint Anthony
Opening of the Mirror of Conscience (Speculum Conscientie), detail
Witches
Figure of Death (Memento Mori)
The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve)
St. Jerome in His Study
Portrait of Saint Jerome
St. Jerome
St. Jerome
St. Jerome
Saint Jerome in His Study
De humani corporis fabrica libri septem
Anatomiae, hoc est corporis humani dissectionis pars prior…
Memento Mori
Erasmus of Rotterdam with a Terminus
Inkstand with an allegorical figure
Time banishing Melancholy
Comb with Secular Scenes
Comb with Secular Scenes
Rosary Pendant: Youth, Age, and Death
Rosary Pendant: Youth, Age, and Death
Rosary Pendant: Youth, Age, and Death
Paternoster Bead from a Rosary or Chaplet with Christ, a Young Woman, and Death
Paternoster Bead from a Rosary or Chaplet with Christ, a Young Woman, and Death
Paternoster Bead from a Rosary or Chaplet with Christ, a Young Woman, and Death
Rosary
Bead from a chaplet or rosary, Herod and Salome with the head of John the Baptist on a dish
Bead from a chaplet or rosary, Herod and Salome with the head of John the Baptist on a dish
Rosary Bead
Rosary Bead
Rosary Bead
Rosary Bead
Rosary, detail
Rosary, detail
Pendant with a Monk and Death
Chaplet bead, detail
Chaplet bead, detail
Chaplet bead, detail
Chaplet bead, detail
Ivory Tödli
Ivory Tödli
Ivory Tödli
Ivory Tödli
Rosary Terminal Bead with the Virgin and Child, Saint Barbara, and Saint Catherine
Rosary Terminal Bead with the Virgin and Child, Saint Barbara, and Saint Catherine
Rosary Terminal Bead with the Virgin and Child, Saint Barbara, and Saint Catherine
Memento Mori Pendant, probably from a rosary
Memento Mori Pendant, probably from a rosary
Memento Mori: Young woman and cadaver Ecce Finem
Memento Mori: Young woman and cadaver Ecce Finem
Pommel (fragment) or rosary bead, 4 faces (chaplet)
Pommel (fragment) or rosary bead, 4 faces (chaplet)
Young Couple Threatened by Death (The Promenade)
Rosary Terminal Bead with Lovers and Death's Head
Rosary Terminal Bead with Lovers and Death's Head
Bead from a Rosary or Chaplet
Bead from a Rosary or Chaplet
Pendant to a Rosary or Chaplet
Pendant to a Rosary or Chaplet
Rosary Pendant: Death Mask and Skull Eaten by Worms and Lizards
Rosary Pendant: Death Mask and Skull Eaten by Worms and Lizards
Pendant to a Rosary or Chaplet
Pendant to a Rosary or Chaplet
Skull Within an Ornamental Frame
Dead Child with Four Skulls
Death of the Lovers
Dance of Death: The Ploughman
Memento mori in form of a tomb
Statuette in an openwork box, detail
Brooch
The Painter and his Wife
Statuette in an openwork box, detail
Anatomical diagram
Study of Three Skulls, recto
Skull
Portrait of a Surgeon
Portrait of Girolamo Mercuriale
Memento mori
Memento mori
Vanitas
Vanitas, detail
Base for a Statuette
Base for a Statuette
Voluptuosity and Virtue
Adam and Eve with a Skeleton
The Coat of Arms of Death
Young Woman Accompanied by Death
Four Naked Women (The Four Witches)
A memento mori broadsheet with wishes for the New Year
Statuette in an openwork box, detail
Memento Mori Prayer Bead
Memento Mori Prayer Bead
Memento Mori Prayer Bead
The Cabinet of Curiosities (Kunstkammerregal)
Memento mori
Vanitas Still Life
Ring
Ring
Scent case
Watch case/skull watch
Toothpick
Death and the Nun
Christ Nailed to the Cross
Denise Poncher Before a Vision of Death
Death personified as a Skeleton in Prayer
Burial Scene
Boethius and Philosophy
Deathbed Scene
Funeral Service
The Torment of Unchaste Monks and Nuns, detail
Death Striking Down the Living, detail
The Temptation to Abandon Faith and The Encouragement of Faith, detail
Mary Rides Forth to Confront Accident
Comb: Garden of Love
Garden of Love, detail
Calendar page for May, detail
Calendar page for June
Dance of Death
Statuette in an openwork box, detail
Presentation at the Temple, detail of frame
Statuette in an openwork box, detail
Visitation, detail of frame
Statuette in an openwork box, detail
Dormition of the Virgin, detail of frame
Rosary
Frontispiece to Ole Worm's, Museum Wormianum
Frontispiece to Ole Worm's, Museum Wormianum, detail
Christophori De Pauli pharmacopoei camera materialium ad vivum delineate
Memento mori in Landesmuseum Württemberg, KK braun-blaue 14, 1, 26, 17
Rosary Pendant: Death Mask and Skull
Schematic reconstruction of the Munich Kunstkammer
Memento mori
Memento mori
Memento mori beads in the collection of the British Museum
Mr. Bradbury's bead on loan to Manchester

Free

Contents

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Contents

Author

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21003

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Free

Foreword

Anne Collins Goodyear

A skull with crossbones may warn us away from poison, advise us not to follow a treacherous path, or intervene lest we expose ourselves to an electrical current. Pirates’ flags famously flash such imagery as a demand to obey or face the consequences of resistance. But if we react instinctively to protect ourselves in the face of such pictographs, the intellectual and artistic roots of such...

Author

Anne Collins Goodyear

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21004

The Ivory Mirror

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

The faces pass before you, dancing into and out of view as your fingers turn the ivory beads (pl. 1, fig. 1): a young man with an impressive fur-lined cloak, linen shirt, and fashionable cap; an elegantly dressed young woman with her hair held back by a slim coronet;...

Author

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Related print edition pages: pp.13-80

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00238.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21005

Chapter subject tags:Christian art and symbolismIvories, RenaissanceDeath in artMemento mori

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel: Manuscript Illumination and the Concept of Death

Elizabeth Morrison

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

In 1477, Mary, the wealthy young heiress of the Duchy of Burgundy, was facing the consequences of the sudden death of her powerful father...

Author

Elizabeth Morrison

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Related print edition pages: pp.83-105

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00238.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21006

Chapter subject tags:Christian art and symbolismIllumination of books and manuscripts, RenaissanceDeath in artBooks of hours

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Chicart Bailly and the Specter of Death: Memento Mori in a Sixteenth-Century Estate Inventory

Katherine Baker

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Pulled from the national archives in Paris, the above epigraph’s description of an image of death in ivory can be connected to the literal demise of two once-living beings...

Author

Katherine Baker

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Related print edition pages: pp.107-119

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00238.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21007

Chapter subject tags:Christian art and symbolismIvories, RenaissanceIllumination of books and manuscripts, RenaissanceDeath in artMemento mori

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Memento Mori Beads: Collecting Histories and Contexts

Naomi Speakman

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Over seventy early sixteenth-century memento mori in the form of finely carved ivory beads are held in museums across Europe and America. These institutions generally display them as examples of the artistic achievements of the early modern...

Author

Naomi Speakman

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Related print edition pages: pp.209-227

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00238.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21008

Chapter subject tags:Ivories, RenaissanceMemento moriCabinets of curiositiesArt--Collectors and collectingBeads--Religious aspects--Christianity

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

The Poetry of Death

Emma Maggie Solberg

How did medieval makaris (makers, poets) put death into words? How did their poetry of death sound to medieval ears? William Wordsworth (1770–1850) famously defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings …...

Author

Emma Maggie Solberg

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Related print edition pages: pp.229-245

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00238.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21009

Chapter subject tags:Poetry, MedievalDeath--PoetryDance of death in literature

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Free

Bibliography

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Bibliography

Author

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21010

Free

Index

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Index

Author

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21011

Image and copyright credits

Free

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

~In most cases, images of objects and works of art have been provided by the owners, and are reproduced with their permission. We gratefully appreciate their courtesy. The following list applies to photographs for which an additional acknowledgment is due.

Author

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21012