Once again we see the use of a vanitas. Like mentioned before with Jan Van Kessel’s vanitas painting, most artists had vanitas in their repertoire. Pieter Claesz shows us his version of a lamentation of the transience of all things in 1630. He has used the skull, showing the brevity of life and reminding us that soon we will all be the same. On the table he has placed an open pocket watch, much like Van Kessel with his use of the hourglass. These timepieces are placed in vanitas to help drive home the notion of the brevity of life. Vanitas were basically a way for the artists to tell people to enjoy life’s pleasures, but not too much. Claesz uses his light source to draw focus on the skull and the pocket watch, helping the viewer know what
