The Skeleton with the Spade

Head thrown back, leaning on a gravedigger’s tool.

Work: anatomical fugitive sheet
Maker: Unknown maker
Date: 16th century
Held by: Wellcome Collection

Memento Mori

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

A woodcut skeleton from an anatomical fugitive sheet, its right forearm resting on a spade and its head thrown back. The spade is the gravedigger's, and it turns a teaching figure into a sermon: the Latin lines in the upper corners and along the foot speak of good and evil and the last things. The Wellcome Collection holds the sheet among its fugitive anatomies, single pages printed for students and sold cheaply. The paper has gone grey with age and handling, which suits the subject.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Skeleton with the Spade, printed large and framed — in the consulting room, the study, the library. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

The Skeleton with the Spade framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of anatomical fugitive sheet — Unknown maker, 16th century — from the copy held by Wellcome Collection. The source. The work is centuries out of copyright and in the public domain.
Printed faithful to that source scan. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the plate you receive is the plate as it survives.
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed editions sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount.
Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the engraver’s, not ours.
Ships in 5–10 business days.
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the engraver’s hand is visible — the linework, the tonal work, the lettering — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.

From the same hand