The ivory mirror
Subtitle: the art of mortality in Renaissance Europe
By: Stephen Perkinson ; with contributions by Naomi Speakman, [and 3 others]
Contributors: Speakman, Naomi, contributor; Bowdoin College. Museum of Art
Publisher: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 279
ISBN-13: 9780300225952
Subjects: Death in art; Renaissance Art; Themes, motives; Exhibitions; Renaissance Ivories
Description: "We often imagine the Renaissance as an age of exceptional human progress and artistic achievement. But, intriguingly, macabre images proliferated in precisely this period: unsettling depictions of Death personified, of decaying bodies, of young lovers struck down in their prime. These morbid themes run riot in the remarkable array of artworks featured in The Ivory Mirror. Nearly 200 illustrated artworks--from ivory prayer beads to gem-encrusted jewelry to exquisitely carved small sculptures--present us with an aspect of this era that is at once darker and more familiar than we might have expected"--
Notes: "This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe, presented at Bowdoin College Museum of Art from June 24 to November 26, 2017"--Colophon.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-264) and index.
Table of contents: title: The Ivory Mirror / Stephen Perkinson; title: The Light at the End of the Tunnel : Manuscript Illumination and the Concept of Death / Elizabeth Morrison; title: Chicart Bailly and the Specter of Death : Memento Mori in a Sixteenth-Century Estate Inventory / Katherine Baker; title: Plates; title: List of Plates; title: Memento mori Beads : Collecting Histories and Contexts / Naomi Speakman; title: The Poetry of Death / Emma Maggie Solberg.