A Vanitas: a celestial globe, a lantern, skulls, manuscripts and books with hollyhocks and thistles near classical ruins

Withoos travelled to Italy with his teacher Otto Marseus van Schrieck in 1648; he returned to his native Amersfoort in 1653. In Rome he must have seen Salvator Rosa's painting of 'Democritus meditating among classical ruins' (Statensmuseum for Kunst, Copenhagen) which was exhibited in 1651. This picture must have been the inspiration for many of Withoos's vanitas still life's (see A.P. de Mirimonde, 'Mors omnia vincit de Mathieu Withoos', Oud Holland, LXXIII, 1958, pp.111/114).

See illustration