AN art exhibition exploring the commemoration of ancient Cheshire residents is drawing to a close at Chester’s Grosvenor Museum.

The Memento Mori collection features a range of watercolours, drawings, prints and photographs depicting historic tombs and memorials across the region, and curators at the museum say the unique nature of the art has already attracted thousands of visitors.

Many of the tombs depicted date back hundreds of years to the region’s Roman heritage, and the exhibition showcases some of the best-preserved examples of memorialisation in Cheshire.

The conservation of many of the artworks in the exhibition was made possible by the Megan Gwynne-Jones Charitable Trust, which has worked in partnership with the Grosvenor Museum Society, the Chester Archaeological Society and Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Clive Pointon, chairman of the Megan Gwynne-Jones Charitable Trust and also heads up the Wills, Trusts and Tax team at Chester-based law firm Aaron and Partners, said: "The Memento Mori exhibition is a truly unique experience and it’s fantastic to see it has drawn so much interest.

“The Trust is proud to have played such an important role in allowing these artworks to go on display, enabling the public to enjoy these fascinating images in Chester – a city right at the heart of Cheshire’s rich cultural heritage. We are very pleased to support the Grosvenor Museum in this way, facilitating the long-term care of the collection.”

Originating in the Medieval period, the phrase Memento Mori translates from Latin as ‘remember you must die’ and the exhibition was created to represent the inevitability of death.

The exhibition launched in November last year and is set to conclude on Sunday, February 24, after which time the general public will no longer be able to view the artefacts.

Peter Boughton, keeper of art at the Grosvenor Museum, said: “Throughout time and across cultures, people have felt a powerful need to honour the departed and preserve their memory.

“This exhibition presents watercolours, drawings, prints and photographs showing how Cheshire has commemorated its dead from the Romans to the present day.

“With tombstones, tomb-chests and mural slabs, public sculptures, cenotaphs and a shrine, the imagery of commemoration ranges across the centuries with knights and their ladies, parents and their children, skeletons and skulls, heraldry, saints and angels.

“We are enormously grateful for the support this exhibition has received from the Megan Gwynne-Jones Charitable Trust, the Grosvenor Museum Society, and the Chester Archaeological Society.

“Now is the time for anyone who has not yet visited the exhibition to do so.”