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.
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