Creator

Salvator Rosa

Creation-date

ca. 1647

Technique

Painting

Material

Oil on Canvas

Inventory number

Inv. 21.105

Subject-1

Salvator Rosa

Object-Current-Location

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Digital resource author

GrECI Project

Digital-resource-rights holder

University of Oslo (for GrECI project)

Image-number

044_Id_19

License

CC BY

Description

As well as demonstrating the painter's erudition, the use of Greek may also have served a symbolic purpose. In this painting, the artist is shown inscribing a skull with a Greek text that may read: "Behold: whither, sometime". The artist uses the language of timeless wisdom to write on an object symbolising the transience of human existence. This juxtaposition heightens the contrast between the eternal and the transient, which is the message of the painted scene.