Art Institute of Chicago

Image of Death (Imago Mortis), from the Nuremberg Chronicle

Michael Wolgemut and Workshop

Date

c. 1493

Medium

Handcolored woodcut in black on cream laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This brightly colored leaf from The Nuremberg Chronicle shows five cheerful skeletons and decaying cadavers dancing, playing music, and emerging from a grave. One tosses its bluish entrails about like a dress train, while others rattle dry bones. Fingerprints appear on the right side of this evidently well-thumbed page. A user also bracketed the text below that begins, “Nothing is better than death,” underscoring the importance of the memento mori (Remember you must die) message offered by the work. The Nuremberg Chronicle was also available uncolored, in black and white.

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