This is of a similar age to the head of a sleeping child which is displayed next to it. Once again, it’s a wax and wooden model of a baby’s head and the ‘Memento Mori’ reminds us of our mortal fate. It’s Austrian, it’s unsettling and I’m not sure why anyone would want to own this, I’d feel I was being stared down by a Renaissance toddler that could somehow see into my soul.
It’s all part of the trend at this time in early modern Europe to be reminded about death and life ending soon, there was an element of cheerful little skulls, skeletons dancing about the place and then this small child’s head to ensure there’s some existential dread to the whole arrangement. It was probably located in a private devotional space and, to be fair, there’s something quite admirable about this period’s attempt to make death part of the conversation, a sentiment we could perhaps learn from today, even if we choose to express it with slightly fewer haunted wax babies.