Description: Silver, modern reproduction of a mid 17th century watchcase in the shape of a human skull. This case has been manufactured exactly the same way as more than 300 years ago.
Additional Info:
Timepieces were formerly an apt reminder that your time on Earth grows shorter with each passing minute. Public clocks would be decorated with mottos such as ultima forsan (“perhaps the last” [hour]) or vulnerant omnes, ultima necat (“they all wound, and the last kills”). Even today, clocks often carry the motto tempus fugit, “time flees”. Old striking clocks often sported automata who would appear and strike the hour; some of the celebrated automaton clocks from Augsburg, Germany, had Death striking the hour. The several computerised “death clocks” revive this old idea.
Private people carried smaller reminders of their own mortality. These portable ‘Memento Mori’ watches came into fashion in France and Britain around 1650, and re-apeared during the end of the 19th century. Mary, Queen of Scots, owned a large watch carved in the form of a silver skull, embellished with the lines of Horace.
Antiquarian Horology 
