Time Defeated by Hope and Beauty

Vouet signed this at the lower left with the city as well as the year, Rome 1627. That was the year the summons came from Paris. He had been in Italy since 1612 and Louis XIII now wanted him home as first painter to the king, so this is Roman work finished on the way out. The allegory runs the opposite way to the usual one. Time is the figure who wears everything else down, and here he is the one being pulled to the ground, his wing feathers cut by one of the women while the other holds him by the hair. His scythe lies broken in the sand with white feathers scattered around it. A small Cupid climbs over his back, and another child at the lower right steadies the hourglass he has dropped.