Vanitas Still Life with Books, a Globe, a Skull, a Violin, and a Fan

Public Domain

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Images(2)

Artist Unknown Painter from the Leiden School

CultureDutch

Titles

Vanitas Still Life with Books, a Globe, a Skull, a Violin, and a Fan

Datec. 1625–30

PlaceLeiden, Netherlands

MediumOil on panel

DimensionsPanel: 12 13/16 × 16 7/16 in. (32.5 × 41.8 cm)
Frame: 23 1/4 x 26 5/8 in. (59.1 x 67.6 cm)

Credit LineSarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston

Object numberBF.2016.5

Not on view

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Department

Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation

Object Type

PAINTING

DescriptionA common theme of 17th-century Dutch culture, which was largely Protestant Christian, was the vanity of human achievement, represented in this still-life painting by the pile of well-read books for knowledge and literature, the violin for music, and the globe for the global span of Dutch mercantile power. The painting is also a memento mori, a reminder of death: the mirror evokes the obsession with youth and beauty, while the skull is a stark reminder that youth, beauty, and life itself will eventually disappear into death. Skulls and skeletons were frequently used as symbols of the fleeting nature of life.
ProvenancePrivate collection, France; [Bob Haboldt & Co., Paris, 2002, as by Jacob Westerbaen]; private collection, New Rochelle, New York, 2002–11; [Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam]; purchased by the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, 2016.
Exhibition History"Two-Eyed Seeing: Contemporary Pasts and Futures at the Blaffer Art Museum," Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, December 9–December 17, 2023. (OL.1658)
Published References B. Schnackenburg, ‘Knabe im Atelier und Bücherstilleben, zwei frühe Gemälde von Jan Lievens und ihr Leidener Kontext: Rembrandt, Jan Davidz. de Heem, Pieter Codde’, in: Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 37-44, p. 46, n. 34 (questioned attribution to Jacob Westerbaen) J. Hillegers, in: D. Bakhuÿs et al., Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, exh. cat. Paris, Fondation Custodia 2009, under cat. 48, pp. 184-185, fig. 48b (as anonymous)

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