Skeletons, also known as Allegory of Death and Fame
Medium
engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 30.9 × 50.8 cm · secondary support: 41.2 × 61.2 cm
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1993.8
Tags
male
About this artwork
Although for centuries scholars have attempted to understand the allegorical meaning of this print, 16th-century artist and author Giorgio Vasari described it simply as “an anatomy of desiccated nudes and of bones of the dead.” A central figure of winged Death stands over an interred skeleton, surrounded by a variety of skeletal and living human figures who appear to debate the fate of the soul. At far left is a “marasmic” man, a type of sun-dried body used by anatomists to study the muscles wit...