A Vanitas Still Life with a Flag, Candlestick, Musical Instruments, Books, Writing Paraphernalia, Globes, and Hourglass

Edwaert Collier was well known in his own time for his still lifes, which replicated in intricate detail actual maps and globes. Here, he reproduced a portion of Frederik de Wit’s 1660 map of the Americas and Jodocus Hondius’s terrestrial globe with a view of Mexico, both of which allude to the Dutch Republic’s international trade networks and the ambition to possess the world through cartographic knowledge. The extinguished candle and hourglass, in contrast, reference the fleeting nature of time. Through such highly illusionistic renderings of the symbols of worldly pursuits, Collier evoked the tension between humanity’s lasting contributions to the fields of art and science and the brevity of an individual life.