Vanitas Still Life

Jacques de Gheyn II

1603 · Oil on wood · European Paintings

This panel is generally considered to be the earliest known independent still-life painting of a vanitas subject, or symbolic depiction of human vanity. The skull, large bubble, cut flowers, and smoking urn all evoke the brevity of life, while images floating in the bubble—such as a wheel of torture and a leper’s rattle—refer to human folly. The figures flanking the arch above are Democritus and Heraclitus, the laughing and weeping philosophers of ancient Greece.

Artist

Jacques de Gheyn II

Date

1603

Medium

Oil on wood

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Charles B. Curtis, Marquand, Victor Wilbour Memorial, and The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Funds, 1974