The Count and Countess with the Hourglass of Death

This black-and-white woodcut depicts a bearded man in a plumed hat and voluminous cloak gesturing toward a central emblem, while a woman in a modest gown, necklace, and braided headdress stands opposite him. Between them rests an ornate shield featuring a skull with a worm, upon which sits an hourglass held by the skeletal, fleshless hands of Death. The background features a rolling landscape and mountains under a cloudy sky, framed by classical architectural elements on the right.

This image is part of Hans Holbein the Younger's 'Les Simulachres & Historiees Faces de la Mort' (1538), a seminal work in the Danse Macabre tradition that reflects Reformation-era anxieties regarding the inevitability of death across all social strata.