Circle of Barthel Bruyn the Elder
This enigmatic vanitas is painted on a softwood panel which is not oak or poplar. The Latin inscription –ANNO [A]ETATIS SUAE XXVIII – translates as ‘in the year of his (or her) age, 28’, and indicates that the panel originally complemented a portrait of someone aged 28. Angelica Dülberg, the leading scholar on Northern European vanitas covers and reverses, posits that our picture was the reverse of such a portrait. It may alternatively have served as a portrait cover, a type that, despite not being particularly well-known, was the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2024.
Here, a skull and still life elements rest on a ledge against a muted backdrop. When paired with an independent portrait, the image serves as a memento mori, reminding the sitter of his mortality and warning against vanity. Scattered in the foreground are two coins, three dice, lingonberries, and a ring, visual elements that further reinforce the painting’s message and reflect both the sitter’s earthly life and his life after death: the coins and ring may suggest the vanity of worldly treasures, while the lingonberries are associated with resilience and longevity, and the dice with eternity. A fly, a symbol of death and rebirth, rests briefly on the skull. The inclusion of a fly – a motif known as a musca depicta – was common in 15th- and 16th-century painting, with scholars variously suggesting that the device served as a trompe l’oeil to convey the artist’s skill, or to indicate the profane nature of the subject, or to further emphasise the brevity of mortal things.
Vanitas still lifes featuring a skull placed upon a parapet or in a niche were popular in Northern Europe in the early to mid-16th century, though the motif of the skull as a painted reverse or exterior appears as early as c. 1452 in Rogier van der Weyden’s Triptych of Jean Braque (Paris, Musée du Louvre, RF2063; fig. 1). Comparable examples to the present work can be found on the reverses of portraits by Bartholomäus Bruyn (1493–1555), called Barthel Bruyn the Elder, such as the Portrait of Margaretha von Mochau (1524; Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum, KM 102.025 RECTO and KM 102.025 VERSO; fig. 2), one half of a portrait diptych of a married couple, and on the reverse of Adriaen Isenbrandt's Virgin of the Marble Throne (first quarter of the sixteenth century, Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano, 02683; fig. 3). The use of a softwood panel points to a place of production in Germany or eastern France, with more precise localization within Germany remaining open to debate. The motif of three dice appears in several paintings by Sebastian Stoskopff (1597–1657), such as a Vanitas Still Life with a Skull in the Kunstmuseum Basel (1630, G 1993.7; fig. 4). While dice could symbolise eternity, three in number may also be a reference to the Passion and the Arma Christi, specifically the lots played by the soldiers for Christ’s robe.We are grateful to the scholars we consulted while researching this panel, including Till-Holger Borchert, Emma Capron, Angelica Dülberg, Stephan Kemperdick, Guido Messling, and Alison Nogueira.
Fig. 1 - Rogier van der Weyden, Triptych of Jean Braque, c. 1452. Paris, Musée du Louvre, RF2063.
Fig. 2 – Barthel Bruyn the Elder, Portrait of Margaretha von Mochau, 1524. Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum, KM 102.025 RECTO and VERSO.
Fig. 4 - Sebastian Stoskopff, Vanitas Still Life with a Skull, 1630. Kunstmuseum Basel, G 1993.
Provenance
Private collection, Illinois.Literature
Comparable literatureHildegard Westhoff-Krummacher, Barthel Bruyn der Ältere als Bildnismaler, Munich, 1965.