Tuesday 1 November 2016

A "Memento Mori" for 1 November

Van Ham, Germany, sells on 18 November 2016 a "School of Nuremberg" Memento Mori, estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 Euro.

It is an example of the perhaps most depressing type of memento mori paintings, the "Nascendo morimur" or "Being born, we die" (as seen on the text panel in the painting). But while these works were popular in Germany, they were also often made in the Netherlands (no coincidence that they were two of the leading Protestant or Refomation countries of the period probably), and this one is a good copy of a work by Marten van Heemskerck. The original is in the Museum of Koblenz.

Being a copy, and in somewhat poor condition, it will struggle to fetch the estimate probably.

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