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Edward Collier(Breda circa 1640-1708 London)A vanitas still life with a skull atop a jewelled crown, an astrological globe, an hourglass, a book, a shell with soap bubbles and an engraved portrait of the Emperor Augustus on a draped table
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Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale

Lisa Greaves
Head of Department
Edward Collier (Breda circa 1640-1708 London)
inscribed 'HOMO EST / SIMILIS / BULLÆ.' (lower left, on the slip of paper) and 'SIC FUGITT. / IRRE.PARABILE / TEMUS.' (upper right, on the paper scroll)
oil on canvas
75.2 x 63.2cm (29 5/8 x 24 7/8in).
Footnotes
Provenance
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 12 July 1978, lot 69
Sale, Christie's, London, 24 April 1998, lot 62, when acquired by
Private Collection, UK, by whom offered
Sale, Christie's, London, 8 December 2023, lot 128, where purchased by the present owner
The present work dates to Collier's early years in Haarlem, before he left for Leiden in 1667, and the influence of artists such as Jan Vermeulen and Jan Janz. van der Velde II is evident. Collier uses carefully arranged objects to remind the viewer of the transience of life: the hourglass, skull and bubbles remind us of the inevitability of death. However, the ivy and globe signify eternal life and the resurrection. The inscriptions which appear in Latin in the present painting underscore that meaning and stress the transitional nature of life: HOMO EST/SIMILIS/ BULLAE (man is a bubble) and SIC FUGITT./IRRE.PARABILE/TEMUS' (it escapes, irretrievable time).
A similar composition, signed and dated 1663, was with Johnny van Haeften, London, March 1983 and is now in the Heinz Collection, Washington.
Dr. Fred Meijer confirmed the attribution to Collier at the time of the 1998 sale.
