A vanitas still life with a violin, music sheets, manuscripts, an hourglass, a globe, a sculpted bust and other objects on a tabletop

The Latin translation of 'emptiness', 'vanitas' is essentially a biblical term referring to the vanity of earthly possessions. An important element of seventeenth-century Netherlandish painting, the vanitas theme traditionally compared the fragility of man and his material pleasures with the inevitablility of death. In the present, typically complex composition, the violin, the playing cards, and the mirror reflect man's material pleasures; the skull and half-burnt candle his finite existence; and the globe, the hourglass, the books and papers symbolize the passage of time and the wisdom accumulated through study.

We are grateful to Sam Segal for suggesting an alternate attribution to David Bailly (Leiden 1584-1657).