Introduction

There is no livelier away to trace the history of certain objects than to turn to the images in which the artists placed them throughout the ages, in their proper setting.

Symbole de la mesure du Temps et de la Navigation, A. Nasini

They are enhanced as symbols of measured time and its inexorable flight. A plethora of allegories represent this Time in the guise of an emaciated old man with a long white beard and two large wings symbolising his swiftness. He carries a scythe and an hourglass: attributes that long predate Christianity since they were those of Saturn who, besides, also personified Time. Astrologists kept the shape of the scythe in the hieroglyph of the planet Saturn which, with the cross at its upper tip, symbolises infinity. 

 

These attributes are often joined by that of Death represented by a skeleton or bald skull which, together with the hourglass, became associated with pious Anchorites. The skeleton for its part, sometimes accompanied by the Devil, the master of ceremonies, is Coryphaeus of the Dance of Death. Perhaps born out of the terrors of the Year 1000, they were widespread during the Middle Ages. Every occupation and every age was affected, from Pope and Emperor to the lowliest beggar, from the old man to the newborn baby. It was not until Holbein that this primitive mood of fear was replaced by the philosophical character of Antiquity.

 

Alfred Chapuis : De Horologiis In Arte