Skull and Case

Entry

Intricately carved from boxwood, this miniature skull survives together with its original holder, a small leather storage case lined in green velvet and standing on four gilded griffons. An incised monogram (fig. a) on the carving’s underside identifies its maker as the Amsterdam sculptor Albert Jansz Vinckenbrinck (1605-1664). Like a similar, somewhat larger skull by the same artist, today preserved at the Amsterdam Museum,³ the present skull belongs to the memento mori tradition.⁴ Due to their diminutive size, these skulls were ideal objects for art and curiosity cabinets. The manner in which they were displayed is conveyed in a trompe-l’oeil still-life painting by the Hamburg artist Johann Georg Hinz (c. 1630/31-1688), which shows two hand-carved miniature skulls – one executed in red coral – in an art cabinet.⁵

Memento mori objects, often in the form of skulls and skeletons, were intended to remind people of life’s transitory nature and the inevitability of death. During periods of personal illness, the notion of vanitas was undoubtedly more manifestly present in people’s lives. In the years 1663-64, Amsterdam experienced a major plague epidemic resulting in the death of approximately one-tenth of the city’s population. Vinckenbrinck, an inhabitant of the city, may very well have carved these skulls in the sphere of such upheaval, though there is no known evidence to confirm this. Considering the year of the sculptor’s death (1664), the possibility exists that he himself also fell victim to the plague.

Starting in the early sixteenth century, boxwood and ivory miniature skulls were also being hung on rosaries.⁶ A French, early-seventeenth-century skull carved in boxwood functioned as a holder for an hourglass.⁷ Unlike other works used in this manner, Vinckenbrinck’s miniature skulls were carved as autonomous works of art, and as stated above, presumably intended for display in an art cabinet. While these are thought to be a unique phenomenon in Dutch sculpture,⁸ in painted Dutch vanitas still-lifes the human skull figures quite commonly as the main theme. One artist firmly rooted in the tradition of Dutch painting, named Pseudo-Roestraeten (active c. 1675-1725, probably in England), is known to have produced two works in which a miniature carved wooden skull appears. Judging by their scale and form, they may very well have been based on one of Vinckenbrinck’s carvings.⁹

The genre of the vanitas still-life emerged around the onset of the seventeenth century, in part under the influence of Protestantism. In the context of the austere lifestyle preached by the Protestants and the growing prosperity of the Dutch Republic, these still-life paintings served as visual reminders warning of life’s temptations and the transitory nature of wealth, with no value in the hereafter.¹⁰ Skulls, manuscripts, hourglasses, and candles were objects each accorded a specific meaning and iconography of their own. Such objects were integrated as a secondary compositional element but were also featured as the primary subject of a painting (cf. SK-A-1342). Vinckenbrinck’s miniature carved heads most likely served a similar function: to warn the beholder of earthly temptations and remind him of his inevitable, impending death.

The naturalistic, true-to-life appearance of Vinckenbrinck’s skulls clearly reflects the knowledge and interest in human anatomy that flourished in the seventeenth century. With bodies being dissected in anatomical theatres, numerous engravings of anatomical studies were in circulation.¹¹ As cited in the estate inventory drawn up after his death, Vinckenbrinck himself had a copy of het anatomieboek van Vezalius, in his possession, referring to the De humani corporis fabrica by the renowned sixteenth-century Flemish anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius.¹² This implies the sculptor may very well have consulted illustrations appearing in such anatomy books, to serve as models for his miniature skulls. The striking accuracy of Vinckenbrinck’s three-dimensional carvings nevertheless suggest he had access to an actual human skull.

Floor ter Haar and Bieke van der Mark, 2025