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Death and the Maiden

Image credit: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

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Notes

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This allegorical painting shows a young woman playing a lute, with the elderly male figure of Death behind her. Death holds a skull in one hand and a looking-glass in the other. A Latin phrase in the top right of the picture reads `MORS/ULTIMA/LINEA RERUM EST' ('Death is the thing which is last in line' - from Horace, 'Epistles' 1,16,79).

This painting shares close similarities with a very small group of works which include 'The Allegory of Man' and 'The Allegory of the Wise and Foolish Virgins' (in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen). Among the artists associated with their production are Hans Eworth, Lucas de Heere and Joris Hoefnagel, but this painting cannot be ascribed with certainty to any of these.

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Stratford-upon-Avon

Title

Death and the Maiden

Date

c.1570

Medium

oil on panel

Measurements

H 65 x W 49 cm

Accession number

SBT 1993-30

Acquisition method

purchased, 1993

Work type

Painting

Inscription description

inscribed: MORS / ULTIMA / LINEA RERUM EST

Normally on display at

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 6QW England

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