Vanitas Still-Life
by VERMEULEN, Jan, Oil on panel, 73 x 58 cm
The present vanitas still-life includes a skull with an ivy wreath, a crown, money bags, an hourglass and a book of sheet music, pearls and other objects on a stone plinth. Inscriptions on two sheets of paper can be read: MORS / OMNIA / VINCIT (Death Conquers All); and VANITAS / VANITATUM / ET OMNIA / VANITAS (Ecclesiastes 1:2, Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity).
This elaborately detailed painting is the only known dated still-life in the artist’s oeuvre: it is dated 1654 on the sheet music, lower right.