Allegory of Transience 1651 - 1701

This engraving, "Allegory of Transience," was made by Harmen de Mayer in the 17th century. The stark image confronts us with symbols of mortality: a skull resting upon books, paired with a candle extinguished, its smoke rising like a departing soul. These "vanitas" motifs remind us of life's fleeting nature. We see echoes of this sentiment throughout art history—the skull, a memento mori, a constant companion in Dutch Golden Age painting and beyond. Consider how the extinguished candle mirrors the brevity of existence, a motif traceable to ancient Roman funerary art, where torches were inverted to symbolize death. The presence of the skull evokes primal fears, while the books suggest the futility of earthly knowledge in the face of oblivion. This iconography resurfaces across centuries, a testament to our enduring obsession with mortality and our quest to find meaning in the face of its inevitability.