Allegory of Vanitas

The small oval in the angel's left hand is a cameo portrait of Emperor Charles V, dead since 1558, and the angel's other hand points to a globe. In Madrid around 1634, where Pereda painted this, Charles was remembered as the ruler whose empire had stretched across Europe and the Americas, and also as the man who gave up his crowns in 1555 and 1556 and retired to a monastery in Extremadura. His great-grandson Philip IV now sat on the Spanish throne. The Habsburg references make the museum think this was a court commission. Spread over the tables below is the full stock of vanitas objects, skulls piled together, an hourglass, a snuffed candle, a clock, coins, jewels, playing cards and armour. On the edge of the table Pereda lettered two Latin words, NIL OMNE, all is nothing.