"Memento Mori," Beginning of the 17th Century, Unknown Artist from the Reno Region, Marble Paste; Capodomonte Museum, Naples, Italy

"Memento Mori," beginning of the 17th Century, unknown artist from the Reno region, marble paste. As seen at the wonderful Capodomonte Museum, Naples, Italy.

Caption on website reads:

Memento Mori

As far as its size and appearance are concerned, this unusual object bears similarity to the many ivory objects in production at that time. It shows the partly decomposed body of a woman, and is a crude allegory of death and of the transient nature of human life. It follows an iconographic tradition which appeared in the Fifteenth Century and which was consolidated during the course of the Sixteenth Century, above all in French Flemish and Germanic areas

More here.

Thanks so much to Dana Sherwood for turning me on to this!