Vanitas Allegory

mythological

A speciality developed by De Poorter was the vanitas allegory. He treated several different kinds of vanitas motifs, often with a woman looking into a mirror. In the present painting a woman at her dressing table is seen to flinch at a skeleton that is holding up a mirror to her - a reminder of her mortality.

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About the Artist

Willem de Poorter

1608 – present

Dutch painter, probably a pupil of Rembrandt. He painted history paintings (especially biblical subjects). His small biblical and allegorical pictures can be connected with Rembrandt's last years in Leiden and first years in Amsterdam, but it is not known if he actually worked in Rembrandt's studio. In his late phase de Poorter also created still-lifes. His still-life paintings of flags and military equipment piled in dramatically lit grottoes hover between the works of Rembrandt and Bramer, without ever capturing the intensity of the former or the fantasy of the latter.

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