Edwaert Collier

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 3 November 1926, lot 58 (as a pair) for £7–0s;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Drouot, 31 March 2016, lot. 55.

This painting is a visual essay on the transience of worldly power. At the center is a skull, whose golden crown has been inverted and dried worthless laurel wreaths placed in its stead. The contents of a princely Kunstkammer have also been carefully depicted, as tokens of vanity perhaps. To the left is a richly lined turtle-shell casket filled with pearls, medals, jewels and other precious objects. Beside it is a nautilus shell cup, mounted in gold, bearing a sculptural figure of a baccante at the top. Printed materials to the right bearing the inscriptions 'NEMO ANTE MORTEM BEATUS' ('No one can be called happy before his death') and 'FINIS CORONAT OPUS' ('The end crowns the work') are further allusions to the end to come. Finally, a print of Julius Caesar, taken from Titian's paintings of the Eleven Caesars with Collier's signature cleverly included, reminds us that even the greatest and most powerful men can be toppled.

A related composition by Collier, featuring the casket, cup and inverted skull, was sold at Sotheby's, New York, 22 January 2004, lot 270, for $30,000.