Two skulls in a window niche

Around 1520, a small panel like this had a plain purpose in a Basel household. Two human skulls rest in a shallow stone niche, seen close up, one facing out and one in profile, as though left on a windowsill. Pictures of this kind, called memento mori, kept the certainty of death in daily sight, a habit of mind that ran deep in a century shaped by recurring plague. The panel came down to us through the Amerbach cabinet, the Basel collection that preserved so much early Holbein in one place. Who actually painted it is still argued, Hans or his elder brother Ambrosius, who were working side by side in the city in exactly these years. The museum lists it under Hans while leaving that question open.