The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Print in black ink with skeletons and skeletal people highlighted in light with fine cross-hatching shading against a dark cross-hatched background. Central, a skeleton lays on a rocky outcropping with people gripping its head and kneeling before it. Standing over it and holding a book, a winged skeleton looks to their right at another skeletal person. On the far left, one skeletal person leans on a cane and holds their arm towards the winged skeleton.

Skeletons, also known as Allegory of Death and Fame

1518

Agostino Veneziano

(Italian, 1490–1540)
a design by

after Rosso Fiorentino

(Italian, 1494–1540)
Italy, 16th century
engraving
Sheet: 30.9 x 50.8 cm (12 3/16 x 20 in.); Secondary Support: 41.2 x 61.2 cm (16 1/4 x 24 1/8 in.)
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1993.8
Catalogue raisonné: Bartsch 424 ( XIV.320) ; Passavant VI. 60.93
Location: Not on view

Description

Although for centuries scholars have attempted to understand the allegorical meaning of this print, 16th-century artist and author Giorgio Vasari described it simply as “an anatomy of desiccated nudes and of bones of the dead.” A central figure of winged Death stands over an interred skeleton, surrounded by a variety of skeletal and living human figures who appear to debate the fate of the soul. At far left is a “marasmic” man, a type of sun-dried body used by anatomists to study the muscles without removing the skin. Rosso Fiorentino, who designed the composition of this print to be engraved by Agostino Veneziano, was a Florentine contemporary of Michelangelo who planned a book on anatomy that was never published.
  • Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), London, stamp (Lugt 2092), lower center, in black ; Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth, sold: Christie's, London, Dec. 5, 1985, lot 71, repr. ; purchased from (R.M. Light & Co., Santa Barbara, CA)
  • “1993 Annual Report.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (July 1994): 143–218. Mentioned: p. 164 www.jstor.org
  • Master/Apprentice: Imitation and Inspiration in the Renaissance. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 2019-February 23, 2020).
    The Novel and the Bizarre: Salvator Rosa’s Scenes of Witchcraft. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 15-June 14, 2015).
    The Cleveland Museum of Art (2/15/2015 - 6/14/2015); "The Novel and the Bizarre: Salvator Rosa's Scenes of Witchcraft"
    Early Italian Engraving: 1460's - 1530's. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 25-October 27, 2002).
    Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; August 25-October 27, 2002. "Early Italian Engravings: 1460s - 1530s."
    Mannerism: Italian, French, and Netherlandish Prints, 1520-1620. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 3-October 26, 1997).
    Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; 8/3/97 - 10/26/97. "Mannerism: Italian, French, and Netherlandish Prints, 1520-1620."
  • {{cite web|title=Skeletons, also known as Allegory of Death and Fame|url=false|author=Agostino Veneziano, Rosso Fiorentino|year=1518|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1993.8