Carved in the round. The accompanying case is made of shagreen leather, lined with green velvet on the interior. The case stands on four gilt-copper griffins and has three copper clasps.

A section is missing of the skull’s right cheekbone. Complete with original accompanying case made of shagreen leather with a copper clasp, standing on four gilt-copper griffins and lined with green-velvet within.

…; sale collection S.W. Josephus Jitta (1818-1897, Amsterdam), Paris (Drouot), 5-22 March 1883, no. 393; …; sale collection Marianne Nathusius-Elias (1863-1950), Amsterdam (Frederik Muller),¹¹J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Doodshoofdje door Albert Vinckenbrinck’, Jaarverslag Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap 94 (1951-52), pp. 95-97, esp. p. 95. 3-10 July 1951, no. 1210, fl. 310;²²Copy RMA. …; from K.A. Legat, The Hague, fl. 700, to the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap; on loan to the museum, since 1951

Object number: BK-KOG-2486

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap

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,³³E. Townsend, Death and Art: Europe 1200-1530, London 2009, pp. 43- 47. the present skull belongs to the memento mori tradition.⁴⁴M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, no. 250. 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.⁵⁵M. Sitt and G. Walczak, Die Gemälde der alten Meister: Die deutschen, englischen, französischen, italienischen und spanischen Gemälde, 1350-1800, coll. cat. Hamburg (Kunsthalle) 2007, no. 435.

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.⁶⁶For wooden skulls carved in boxwood from the Low Countries, see F. Scholten (ed.), Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, exh. cat. Toronto (Art Gallery of Ontario)/New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2016-17, nos. 59, 62 and 63. For examples of ivory pendants from northern France or the Southern Netherlands, often combining a skull with the heads of Christ and the Virgin, see the Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. no. 1990.315 and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, inv. no. 71.326. A French, early-seventeenth-century skull carved in boxwood functioned as a holder for an hourglass.⁷⁷Ecouen, Musée national de la Renaissance, inv. no. E.Cl. 2161, see D. Alchouffe, Un temps d’exubérance: Les arts décoratifs sous Louis XIII et Anne d’Autriche, exh. cat. Paris (Galeries nationales du Grand Palais) 2002, no. 186. 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,⁸⁸Carved wooden skulls of German origin are known to exist, cf. sale London (Sotheby’s), 22 April 1986, nos. 193 and 195. 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.⁹⁹Sale New York (Sotheby’s), 27 January 2011, nos. 231 and 276.

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.¹⁰¹⁰R.B. Sonnema, The Early Dutch Vanitas Still-Life, Ann Arbor 1980, pp. 1-16. 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.¹¹¹¹T. Huisman, The Finger of God: Anatomical Practice in 17th-Century Leiden, Leiden 2009, p. 17. L. Möller, ‘Anatomia – Memento Mori’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 10 (1959), pp. 71-98. 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.¹²¹²D. Francken Dzn, ‘Albert Jansz. Vinckenbrinck’, Oud Holland 4 (1887), pp. 73-92, esp. p. 81. 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

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 250, with earlier literature; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, p. 209; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Kleinplastiek van Albert Jansz. Vinckenbrinck’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 414-25, esp. p. 414; coll. cat. Amsterdam 2013, p. 52

F. ter Haar and B. van der Mark, 2025, 'Albert Jansz. Vinckenbrinck, Skull and Case, Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1664', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115902