A vanitas still life with a globe, a hourglass, a rose, a skull, musical instruments, papers and books on a draped table

The artist began his career as a pupil of Frans Hals, who painted his portrait in 1655-60 (Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario), and in 1649 he joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. His known surviving painted oeuvre consists primarily of vanitas still lifes - for example the Vanitas still life with an engraved portrait of King Charles I in the Louvre, Paris, or the eponymous work sold in these Rooms, 24 April 1998, lot 60 (£56,500) - although he received commissions for ceiling paintings, signboards, landscapes, portraits and other works. He is perhaps most celebrated for the illustrated diary of his travels through Germany, Switzerland and France between 1652 and 1655 that he subsequently worked up in a second volume, copying his drawings and adding topographical prints by Matthäus Merian I and Jean Boisseau (Haarlem, Gemeentearchief).