Making use of wax’s uncanny resemblance to flesh, Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini created a trio of sculptures that viscerally illustrate the states of the soul after death: Paradise, Purgatory, and Hell. Their vivid imagery, designed to inspire contemplation of mortality, is drawn directly from popular prints by the German artist Alexander Mair and Dutch artist Egbert van Panderen.

Hell depicts a damned soul surrounded by grotesque monsters, his muscles straining and his face contorted with a bloodcurdling scream. Azzolini powerfully expresses the figure’s pain and terror, while also demonstrating an attention to musculature, which reflects the increased interest in science and anatomy in Europe during the 1600s.