André Tchaikowsky was a Polish composer and pianist. In addition to his musical work, he is perhaps best known for bequeathing his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use as Yorick in Hamlet.
André Tchaikowsky as a young man
In accordance with Tchaikowsky's wishes, his skull has been used as a theatrical prop by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Here, actor David Tennant uses Tchaikowsky's skull in a 2008 production of Hamlet.
Yorick is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. He is the dead court jester whose skull is exhumed by the First Gravedigger in Act 5, Scene 1, of the play. The sight of Yorick's skull evokes a reminiscence by Prince Hamlet of the man, who apparently played a role during Hamlet's upbringing:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Yorick's skull in the 'gravedigger scene' (5.1), depicted by Eugène Delacroix.
Portrait of Katheryn of Berain by Adriaen van Cronenburg c.1560. Shakespeare's 1601 poem The Phoenix and the Turtle was published in a collection dedicated to Katheryn's son, John Salusbury.
Frans Hals, Young Man with a Skull
Alas, poor Yorick: a humorous rendering of Laurence Sterne's Yorick by Martin Rowson in his graphic novel of Tristram Shandy
