A memento mori painting is one that reminds the viewer of death, and the human skull was its usual messenger. The Latin phrase means "remember that you will die," and European painters repeated the message for centuries.
This list follows that warning across nearly five centuries and asks, picture by picture, what it wants from the person looking.
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How These Were Chosen
Hundreds of skull pictures exist, so each work here earns its place by using the warning differently: as a prayer, a status symbol, a self-portrait or a joke. Pictures that only repeat another one's message stayed out, however famous.
12. Damien Hirst, For the Love of God (2007)
A human skull covered from crown to jaw in diamonds. Damien Hirst made For the Love of God in London in 2007, and it is the only sculpture on this list.
The skull is a copy of a real one. Hirst bought a human skull in a London shop in 2005, and Bentley & Skinner cast it in platinum. Radiocarbon dating placed its owner between 1720 and 1810.
The London jewelers Bentley & Skinner set the platinum cast with 8,601 diamonds, 1,106 carats in all. Hirst said the work was eighteen months in the making.
One stone stands apart. A pink diamond cut in the shape of a pear sits on the forehead, and it weighs 52.4 carats.
The teeth catch the eye. Hirst set the original skull's own teeth into the platinum jaws, so among all that glitter the mouth is the one part that came with the man.
The price is what made the news. Hirst said the skull sold on 30 August 2007 for £50 million, to an anonymous consortium that included himself.
In January 2022 Hirst said he still co-owned the skull, along with White Cube and undisclosed investors. Artnet took that to mean the 2007 sale never happened.
At a Glance
Artist: Damien Hirst (born 1965)
Made: 2007, London
Medium: Platinum, diamonds and human teeth, cast from a human skull of the eighteenth century
Size: 17.1 × 12.7 × 19.1 cm (6.7 × 5 × 7.5 in)
Where to see it: Privately held by the artist, White Cube and investors. It was shown at White Cube in 2007 and at Tate Modern in 2012.
About This Sculpture
How much did For the Love of God cost to make?
Production costs for For the Love of God are commonly reported at around 14 million pounds, against an asking price of 50 million.
Where is the diamond skull kept?
Hirst said in January 2022 that For the Love of God was in storage in a vault in London's Hatton Garden jewelry district.
Where did the pink diamond come from?
The pink diamond on Hirst's skull, named the Skull Star, began as a rough stone of 129.81 carats that was cut in Antwerp to 52.40 carats. Bentley & Skinner call it the largest recorded pear shaped pink diamond in existence.
11. Andy Warhol, Skulls (1976)
The same skull, printed over and over in a grid, each copy in another loud color. Andy Warhol made the Skulls series in 1976, and the model was a real skull he bought at a flea market in Paris.