The Cabinet
The Skull Watch — c. 1650
Time and mortality in one object, literally.
- Work
- Memento-mori watch in a silver skull
- Maker
- Isaac Penard
- Date
- c. 1650
- Held by
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Open Access)
- License
- CC0
- Master
- 4000×3879px
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
Sizes are capped to what this piece’s real source scan honestly supports — we never enlarge past the engraving.
$29.00
The story
A silver memento-mori skull that hinges open at the jaw to reveal a watch — the seventeenth century did not need the metaphor explained. Isaac Penard made this around 1650, when the form watch was piety, jewelry, and engineering in a single object; the hour is literally told through the teeth. Every watch since has been a memento mori with better manners, and this one, photographed at the Met's full open-access resolution, says so without a word of Latin required.
See it on your wall
The mechanism, made for a room
The Skull Watch — c. 1650 printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of an open-access work held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Open Access), served under the institution’s stated license (CC0) — source linked below.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper or 400gsm canvas; framed pieces sit behind acrylic.
- The artwork is never cropped and never enlarged past its scan — sizes stop where the engraving stops holding.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Open Access) — the scan this reproduction is printed from, and the page documenting its public-domain / open-access status. We are unaffiliated with any watch manufacturer, past or present.
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