DAVID BAILLY
Dutch, 1584-1657
Vanitas Still Life with Portrait,
ca. 1650
Oil on canvas. 37 1/4 x 45 3/4 in. (95 x 116 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Louis V. Keeler, Class of 1911, by exchange. 86.6
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This painting is an unusually large and splendid example of the vanitas
still life. Vanitas, in Latin, refers to the "vanity" of
all worldly things, such as riches, beauty, pastimes, learning, and the
arts. In this painting by David Bailly, a Dutch artist who worked in Leiden,
where Rembrandt was born, the skull in the center reminds us of the vanity
of music (the lute and flute), the visual arts (the palette and brushes
and the small sculpture), the pleasures of the flesh (dice, cards, pipe,
and tobacco), learning (books), and natural beauty (flowers). The hourglass,
sundial, and |
guttering candle all emphasize the passing of time; the rising bubbles
epitomize the fragility of life; the barely legible letter beneath the skull
refers to death and war; and the black servant, elegantly dressed and with
a gold chain (symbolizing loyalty) around his neck, is one more accouterment
of a wealth that must inevitably pass away. The servant holds a miniature
portrait of the (unknown) patron who commissioned the painting, appropriately
small, to indicate his lack of pretension and rejection of ostentation. |
