Whale bone, carved
Total dimensions: 7 x 13 x 3.5 cm
very good condition
‘See no evil! Hear no evil! Speak no evil!’ originates from a Japanese saying and symbolizes the exemplary handling of the bad

These three small death figures (Tödlein) are mounted on a wooden plinth, a coffin lid with a cross on the lower side. The three small and filigree of whale bone carved skeletons depict the trilogy of the senses. ‘See no evil! Hear no evil! Speak no evil!’ originates from a Japanese saying and symbolizes the exemplary handling of the bad.

‘Teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom’ (Psalm 90:12). Death is an outsider in our today’s society, an unloved marginal figure. We live in the belief of the idea that we could outwit nature and strive for eternal life. Clerical life had almost come to a standstill in the ‘dark Middle Ages’ (9th C.), which inside the church led to strive after asceticism and the cleaning of anything secular and ruinous. The result were also the foundation of many cloisters and was connected to a certain mysticism, which is still felt today in the walls of a cloister. The heaped appearance of the Black Death in the 14th and 15th century led again to an enforcement of the Memento Mori thought. Dances of the death, death sculptures, changing heads and skulls found entrance into the prayers and mediations about life and death. The confrontations with death and the consciousness of the transience of the earthly were supposed to animate a more god-fearing life.

The three death figures are in very good condition. The total dimensions, including the plinth, are 7 x 13 x 3.5 cm. (tm)

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