"Memento Mori", Italian wooden skull pipe - Genoa early 20th century, CESARE VACCARI

"Memento Mori" - Vanitas, with carved skull-shaped burner. Bakelite mouthpiece.
A vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. The skull was the symbol of death from the 1500s onwards; previously death was represented as a skeleton. Skulls were very popular in the Baroque period and were not only an essential part of any Wonderland Room (Wunderkammer), but also acted as contemplative reminders of mortality. In hourglasses, the interval taken by the sand or water to pass from the upper, full, to the lower, empty, constituted the measure of time; frequent as a symbol of the flow of time, the transience of human life and therefore also of death.
Length x height x width 15.5 x 6 x 3.5 cm.
Item condition grading: **** good.