Flemish school; second third of the XVII century.

Flemish school; second third of the XVII century.
"Vanitas".
Oil on copper.
It has Italian frame of the eighteenth century.
Measurements: 22,5 cm x 28 cm; 30,5 x 35 cm (frame).
Oil on copper representing a small angel with his back to the viewer, surrounded by numerous objects. Among these, the skull of a skull stands out, indicating the presence of death next to the childish innocence. One of the most treated themes during the baroque period.
Within the still life and still life genre, the modality of the vanitas reached a special development during the Baroque. Its name comes from a passage in Ecclesiastes (1:2): Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas (Vanity of vanities, all is vanity) and was used pictorially to introduce a reflection on the transience of life and the futility of worldly pleasures in the face of the certainty of death. During the seventeenth century, the great northern schools continued to exert their influence on the stylistic development of painting, both classicism and tenebrism continued to influence and evolve in their forms, towards a more decaffeinated style, losing some of its great expressiveness. In the case of tenebrism was a resource widely used in the painting of still lifes or Vanitas because generally speaking, in southern Europe preferred the naturalism of Caravaggio and less emphasis was placed on the meticulous detailing typical of northern Europe.
Flemish master; c. 1520.