La << Mort Saint-Innocent >> statue in the Louvre Museum

La << Mort Saint-Innocent >> literally translates to The "Dead Saint Innocent" in English. 

It's a French statue in the Louvre Museum located in Paris. It stands 1.2 metres tall and was originally located in the "Cimetière des Innocents", literally the "Cemetery of the Innocent" or "the Cemetery of Innocents" but this cemetery closed in 1786. Not much is known about the actual statue, who made it, or the exact date. The estimate is given as around 1530. 

The statue is very strange and immediately my caught my eye. I'd been walking through typical Roman statues, building fragments and Virgin Marys. I turned a corner and saw this amazing skeleton.

Looks to be in old French. I can't understand it but I was having trouble with the font they'd used. The French and English translations are below. 

In thinking the symbol below could be the sculptor's mark. 

L'image décharnée de la Mort se dressait au centre du cimetière des Innocents. Sur son bouclier, un quatrain rappelle :
<< Il n'est vivant tant soit plein d'art
Ne de force pour resistance
Que je ne frappe de mon dard
Pour bailler aux vers leur pitance
Priez Dieu pour les trepasses. >>
À la suppression du cimetière, en 1786, le squelette a été porté à Saint-Gervais, puis à Notre-Dame, où le bras a été refait par le sculpteur Deseine, ensuite au musée des Monuments français.

The image shows the Angel of Death and was in the centre of the Cemetery of Innocents. On his shield a verse reads:

"Only living when in art

No strength or resistance 

Who I hit with my dart 

To send them into poverty  

Pray to God for the trespassers" 

(I'm thinking trespasses is used to mean sinners, as in the Lord's Prayer.)

When the cemetery closed in  1786, this skeleton was taken to Saint-Gervais, then to Notre-Dame, where the arms were resculpted by Deseine, then the to the Museum of French Monuments. 

It was acquired by The Louvre in 1866 but this is the first time I've seen it. Admittedly I always see new things and you could walk it for days and still miss things. Not mentioning the storage. 

If you want to see this for yourself it's in he Richelieu section on the ground floor in room 13. Or was at the time of writing. 

I may or may not write about the Cemetery of Innocents later on, if you really want me to comment below. 

Sources

Link to the catalog reference from the Louvre website (in French)

Wikimedia for a better quality image

As a sidenote there was a plague in France between 1451 and 1503. Could this have inspired the sculptor?