The Nun, from The Dance of Death

In a sparsely furnished room, a nun in habit kneels at a small altar with her hands clasped. A skeleton, wearing a headcloth, stands behind her, reaching out to extinguish a candle on the altar. To the right, a young man sits on a bench playing a stringed instrument, apparently oblivious to the presence of Death behind him. The scene is rendered in dense hatching, emphasizing the contrast between the life of the religious devotion and the imminent arrival of mortality.

This image is part of Holbein's 'Dance of Death' (Les Simulachres & Historiees Faces de la Mort), a seminal series reflecting the pervasive memento mori culture of the Reformation era. It underscores the egalitarian nature of death, which strikes regardless of one's piety or worldly distractions.