Swiss silver cylinder watch in the form of a skull Circa 1950

Silver skull-form Memento Mori watch with chain
–
A fine and unusual Swiss silver Memento Mori skull watch in the Renaissance style, with a matching chain, circa 1950.Cast silver case, designed as a skull, the hinged jaw decorated inside with satanic symbols,  the top of the skull hinges at the back to reveal the dial, in the base of the jaw a representation of a serpent. Wound through the engraved silver dial with Roman numerals and blue steel hands. Small circular gilt bar movement with going barrel, plain cock with polished steel regulator, three-arm balance with blue steel spiral hairspring, polished steel cylinder and steel escape wheel. Accompanied by a matching silver chain with cast links in the form of cast bones, a large cast skeletal hand, and an original matching key.
–
Dimensions: 45 x 28 x 26 mm
–
Signed: No name
–
Memento Mori
Latin for ‘remember that you [have to] die’ is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has roots in classical antiquity and Christianity philosophers and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period.
The most common motif is a skull, often accompanied by bones. Often this alone is enough to evoke the trope, but other motifs such as a coffin, hourglass and wilting flowers signified the impermanence of human life. Often these function within a work whose main subject is something else, such as a portrait, but the vanitas is an artistic genre where the theme of death is the main subject. The Danse Macabre and Death personified with a scythe as the Grim Reaper are even more direct evocations of the trope.