1663 · Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille

The painting shows a sarcophagus in a half-ruined church, with its vanishing point on the left. Objects of vanity are assembled in the foreground, piled up in the shape of a pyramid and culminating in an ermine coat, a turban (at the very top, at the banister, next to the skull), a royal crown, a mitre and a globe. These symbols of secular and ecclesiastical power at the zenith of the composition are further explained by a richly decorated bowl, worked by a goldsmith.Show more