Cadaver monument in the context of "Funerary art"

Memento mori (Latin for "remember (that you have) to die") is an artistic symbol or trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards.

The most common motif is a skull, often accompanied by bones. Often, this alone is enough to evoke the trope, but other motifs include a coffin, hourglass, or wilting flowers to signify the impermanence of life. Often, these would accompany a different central subject within a wider work, such as portraiture; however, the concept includes standalone genres such as the vanitas and Danse Macabre in visual art and cadaver monuments in sculpture.

The Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon (French: Transi de René de Chalon, also known as the Memorial to the Heart of René de Chalon or The Skeleton) is a late Gothic period cadaver monument (transi) in the church of Saint-Étienne at Bar-le-Duc, in northeastern France. It consists of an altarpiece and a limestone statue of a putrefied and skinless corpse which stands upright and extends his left hand outwards. Completed sometime between 1544 and 1557, the majority of its construction is attributed to the French sculptor Ligier Richier. Other elements, including the coat of arms and funerary drapery, were added in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.

The tomb dates from a period of societal anxiety over death, as plague, war and religious conflicts ravaged Europe. It was commissioned as the resting place of René of Chalon, Prince of Orange, son-in-law of Duke Antoine of Lorraine. René died at the age of 25 during the siege of St. Dizier on 15 July 1544, from a wound sustained in battle the previous day. Richier presents him as an écorché, with his skin and muscles decayed, leaving him reduced to a skeleton. This fulfilled his alleged deathbed wish, that his tomb depict his body as it would be three years after his death. His left arm is raised as if gesturing towards heaven. At one point, his heart was supposedly held in a reliquary, placed in the hand of the figure's raised arm. Unusually for contemporaneous objects of this type, his skeleton is standing, making it a "living corpse", an innovation that was to become highly influential. The tomb effigy is positioned above the carved marble and limestone altarpiece.

A tomb effigy (French: gisant ("lying")) is a sculpted effigy of a deceased person usually shown lying recumbent on a rectangular slab, presented in full ceremonial dress or wrapped in a shroud, and shown either dying or shortly after death. Such funerary and commemorative reliefs were first developed in Ancient Egyptian and Etruscan cultures, and appear most frequently in Western European tombs from the late 11th century, in a style that continued in use through the Renaissance and early modern period, and is still sometimes used. They typically represent the deceased in a state of "eternal repose", with hands folded in prayer, lying on a pillow, awaiting resurrection. A husband and wife may be depicted lying side by side.

Medieval life-size recumbent effigies were first used for tombs of royalty and senior clerics, before spreading to the nobility. A particular type of late medieval effigy was the transi, or cadaver monument, in which the effigy is in the macabre form of a decomposing corpse, or such a figure lies on a lower level, beneath a more conventional effigy. Mourning or weeping figures, known as pleurants were added to important tombs below the effigy. Non-recumbent types of effigy became popular during the Renaissance. By the early Modern period, European effigies were often shown as alive, either kneeling or in a more active pose, especially for military figures. Variations show the deceased lying on their side as if reading, kneeling in prayer, or even standing. The recumbent effigy had something of a revival during the 19th-century Gothic revival, especially for bishops and other clerics.

The Cadaver Tomb of Guillaume de Harsigny is a 1394 cadaver monument (transi) now in the Musée d'art et d'archéologie de Laon (Musée de Laon). It is notable as one of the earliest known French transi, and the first to be sculpted in the round (ie fully three dimensional as opposed to carved on coffin lid or stone slab). The original monument contained a tomb chest holding his remains, however this was lost in 1841. Similarly, the effigy had been painted black, this too is lost.

It was commissioned by Guillaume de Harsigny (c. 1300–1393), a French doctor who was one of the most notable physicians of his time. He became court physician to Charles V of France, and gained fame after an apparently successful operation on the King's skull after the monarch had suffered a nervous breakdown.