The Rosary

Image 1

Name: German Rosary
Author: anonymous
Date: c.1500-1525
Medium: Ivory, silver, partly gilded mounts
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Photo by: n/a
Copyright: Public Domain
Permalink: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/464300
Description: Each of the memento mori beads at the ends shows a human face on one side (apparently that of a monk) that is stripped of its flesh on the other. Some of the medallion beads seem to express the same notion, showing a fashionably dressed figure on one side and a skeleton on the other. Some have images of the living on both sides; while they are related in form and iconography, they appear to be by different hands. Similar memento mori beads and medallions are known, but such a long strand is rare. (Metropolitan Museum)

Image 2

Name: Flemish Rosary
Author: anonymous
Date: c.1525-1550
Medium: Boxwood and Gilt Silver
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Photo by: n/a
Copyright: Public Domain
Permalink: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/193475
Description: Dinner guests are stunned as Death flies in to spoil the party. A jug on the table is overturned in the confusion, and one man breathes his last. Above, angels sound the trumpets of the Last Judgment. The inscriptions, warning of final judgment, are similar in message and placement to those carved in wood on other beads, suggesting that the silver case was an upgrade to an original boxwood shell. The tiny holes in the metal signal that it may have contained a perfumed substance. (Metropolitan Museum)

Image 3

Name: Spanish Rosary Bead
Author: anonymous German
Date: c.1500-1525
Medium: Ivory, polychromy, silver gilt mount
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Photo by: n/a
Copyright: Public Domain
Permalink: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/464298
Description: 
The outside of each half is carved in the form of a scallop shell, the emblem of Saint James and of pilgrimages, perhaps indicating that the object was intended for use on such a journey. (Metropolitan Museum)

Image 4

Name: Rosary, probably French or Flemish 
Author: anonymous 
Date: c.1530
Medium: Ivory
Location: V&A Museum
Photo by: n/a
Copyright: Public Domain
Permalink: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O130961/rosary-rosary-unknown/
Description: This is an ivory chaplet made in France or South Netherlands in about 1530. The beads are carved with figures of the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist, the joined heads of a man, woman and Death, and images of the Pope, kings and figures in aristocratic dress. The Italianate ornament in which these images are set is characteristic of the style considered fashionable by sophisticated French purchases of such luxury items around 1550.
Considered all together the beads constitute a sculptural equivalent of the Office of the Dead found in contemporary Books of Hours, and indeed the extensive choice of figures, including the fool and what may be taken as members of the various ecclesiastical, courtly and professional hierarchies, echoes that found in the margins of Philippe Pigouchet's Book of Hours of the late 1490s. (V&A Museum)

Image 5

Name: Flemish Rosary 
Author: anonymous 
Date: c.1500
Medium: Ivory, garnet
Location: British Museum
Photo by: n/a
Copyright: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 4.0 International) 
Description: Ten beads in the form of alternate male and female heads; one large openwork bead of architectural design and figures depicting the Betrayal of Christ; crucifix pendant; garnet between each bead; beads are joined with wire. (British Museum)