Caricatures of Death Personified

From a pre-Revolutionary magazine, first published in Russia in 1906. Illustrations by Boris Kustodiev.

Personifications of death included depictions of the devastating 1906 drought and ensuing famine, and the ravages of cholera, in the midst of revolutionary uprisings in Moscow.

biomedicalephemera:

Wax anatomical models of man and woman; half-skeleton, half-living, in fashionable Regency garments.

It’s unknown if these models were intended as a darkly comic “memento mori” sort of novelty, or a teaching aid, or both.

The skeletons are accurate enough to have been used to teach students how the articulations line up in the living body, so even as a novelty, they may have had an educational use.

Models located at Science Museum London, originally created ca. 1810-1830.

Death Lithographs.  By Thomas Sara.

(Source: likehistoryinthemaking)

vastderp:

luzerna:

mistahgrundy:

keep-it-for-your-own:

Carved Tibetan skulls.

this is the coolest thing I have ever seen

please do this to my skull when I die

i was a bit suspicious of its authenticity at first, but apparently this is totally legitimate, it is something people actually did with human skulls just a few centuries ago (the original source—at least, what i think is the original source—says this skull is only about 300 years old). most of the other skulls that turn up on image searches are less intricate than this one but still have the same carvings on the mandible. a more common variation of skull carving is the kapala, which is only the cranium; if the skulls used for these works of art are sky burial remains it makes sense that whole skull carvings or rare because the mandible may be lost in a lot of cases.

whether or not this is a true antique or not though doesn’t matter much tho because it’s rad either way

please someone do this for me when i die.

(Source: act-of-the-ignoramus)

The kiss of death.

This astonishing sculpture forms part of Barcelona’s Poblenou Cemetery.  The Kiss of Death (El Petó de la Mort in Catalan and El beso de la muerte in Spanish) dates back to 1930. A winged skeleton bestows a kiss on the lips of a handsome young man: is it ecstasy on his face or resignation? Little wonder the sculpture elicits strong and varying responses from whoever gazes upon it.