I wanted to use this as an icon, here’s a clean cut out, for anyone interested
It’s interesting that they decided to carve it with missing teeth.
Is the skull real or ivory?
I don’t really see how you could get the snake to fit so well with a real skull. It’s tail even goes through some kind of hole at the jaw hinge. So I guess it must all be made of ivory even though it looks super real
What’s wild to me is the sutures. That’s a detail I didn’t expect on a carving of a skull, and it makes me wonder how many real skulls the artist held in his hand to compare. I’m 99% sure it’s all ivory, the area above the teeth looks just a little too smooth for it to be a actual skull, but good GOD is that detailed and amazing
19-th century is, like, the age of most of buildings in old European cities like Vienna.