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Antique Double Sided Rosary Bead with Head of Christ and Skull Carved in Bone

Antique Double Sided Rosary Bead with Head of Christ and Skull Carved in Bone

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Antique Double Sided Rosary Bead with Head of Christ and Skull Carved in Bone

About the Item

ROSARY BEAD WITH WENDEKOPF Germany, 16th century Bone Weight 12 grams; dimensions 29 × 23 × 24 cm A double-sided bead made of bone with a finely carved head of Christ on one side and a skull on the other side and with a vertical drillhole for threading onto a rosary. Rosaries often had a larger, more lavish bead at the end of the string, the terminal bead, as well as so-called gauds—large, ornamental beads that prompted the devotee to say the Pater Noster. Because of its size, this bead might be either one of these bead types. Both of these types of larger beads signaled wealth and upper-class status manifested in fine materials and exquisite workmanship, but they also likely attest to their owners’ most deeply held concerns. More than seventy skull-shaped bone or ivory beads are preserved in museum collections. The use of bone as a material has various associations and purposes; some Tibetan prayer beads were made of human skulls (extremely unlikely in this case!), but most medieval people would have believed ivory, from an elephant’s “tooth,” to be a kind of bone. At any rate, the use of bone would effectively magnify the association with death. Stephen Perkinson calls the death’s head a “true mirror,” supplying a means of looking “that reveals the truth about us that lies hidden beneath our skin.” The imagery and objects that can be classed as memento mori (Latin: “remember that you must die”) might have reminded the onlooker of the transitory nature of life and material goods, or they might have served as warnings against vanity and an injunction against sin. On Ash Wednesday even today, Christians receive ashes marked onto their foreheads with the ritual words, “Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Within this context, double-sided prayer beads seek to activate thoughts about mortality. Called Wendekopf (revolving heads) in German, their very nature induced the onlooker to rotate them to see both—or three or four—sides. Many examples, such as a terminal bead from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, show a “portrait” of the elegantly dressed owner, only to reverse to the thought-provoking skull, or here a skeletal torso, crawling with the vermin of decomposition. (Compare the hardwood snuff box possibly meant to store tobacco that takes the shape of a skull and whose “vermin” turn into the snake of the story of Eden, the biblical origin of humanity’s mortality.) Rosary beads might show a newly married couple on one side and a skull or the ages of man on the other. Again, the impetus to turn the bead, to imaginatively move through time, is part of the devotional experience. This bead diverges from the majority of the beads just described in that it lends itself more readily to devotional use. Three sixteenth-century German beads in Hamburg are similarly two-sided and similarly display the Face of Christ with the Crown of Thorns on one side, and a skull on the opposite side. Each of these objects urges the viewer to turn the bead. (Eager hands may in fact have been responsible for the damage on this bead.) In these two-faced beads, ultimately the owner does not enjoy looking at his own “portrait,” but instead must identify with the skull, an abject reminder of mortality that as the bead turns recalls the suffering of Christ’s incarnation and Passion. In a touching detail and perhaps final reassurance: although Christ does not meet the eyes of the viewer, his lips seem to be parted as if to speak.

Weight:
12 g
Dimensions:
Height: 1.15 in (29 mm)Width: 0.91 in (23 mm)Depth: 9.45 in (240 mm)
Place of Origin:
Germany
Period:
16th Century
Date of Manufacture:
16th century
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Chicago, IL
Reference Number:
Seller: J 350371stDibs: LU2334218622332

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