Before his death, Ralph Hamsterley commissioned this “memento mori” brass effigy.
It is now embedded in the floor of St. Andrew’s Church, in Oddington, Oxfordshire. Above the macabre image of his own skeleton crawling with worms an inscription reads, “VERMIBUS HIC DONOR ET SIC OSTENDERE CONOR QUOD SICUT HIC PONOR: PONITOR OMNIS HONOR” (“Here I am, given to the worms, and thus I try to show, That as I am laid aside here so is all honour laid aside.”).
This video shows the process of interpreting the effigy in carved wood.
Ralph Hamsterely (d. 1518)
9” x 27”
oil on carved wood by Alex Naszados