This is one of the earliest dated still lifes by Claesz, a Haarlem painter who gave extraordinary presence to familiar things. Here a skull, an overturned glass roemer with its fleeting reflections, an expired lamp, and the attributes of a writer suggest that worldly efforts are ultimately in vain. This superb early work by Claesz, in pristine condition, was long considered to date from 1623 until the question was revisited in 1982 at the request of Martina Brunner-Bulst, whose monograph of 2004 and the Claesz exhibition of 2004–5 now make clear that in style and subject matter the painting is typical of the late 1620s. Technical examination of the date inscribed on the painting confirms that it is intact and can be read only as 1628. The simplicity and directness achieved in this work were gradually distilled by Claesz over a period of several years, in which he could be said to have reached a moment of early maturity. The Vanitas Still Life with Brass Candlestick, Writing Materials, Letter, Pocket Watch, and Anemone, of 1625 (Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem), continues the additive distribution of motifs found in earlier works, but reduces their number, focusing on two objects, the candlestick and the skull. The Vanitas Still Life with Violin and Glass Ball, of about 1628 (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg), is more complex and repeats the motifs and to some extent the placement of the lamp, pen, pen holder, inkwell, roemer (drinking glass), book, and folders of papers that are found in The Met's composition. Of known works by Claesz, it is not a vanitas picture with a skull but the Still Life with Books and Burning Candle, of 1627 (Mauritshuis, The Hague), that anticipates the Museum's work in its concentration, but the impression is of a small world of reflections and shadows, rather than that of a stark encounter with death in the light of day. The subject might be interpreted as one of the many variations on the theme of worldly accomplishments—writing, learning, dabbling in the arts—that ultimately come to nothing: all is vanity. The wisp of smoke in the lamp and the reflections in the glass are signs of fleeting existence common in Dutch paintings. Here the skull is not merely an intrusion into a world of human activity, but the familiar attribute of a scholar or philosopher. For the original owner of a work such as this one, the image probably expressed not only the vanity of knowledge but also the knowledge of vanity, much as a contemporary portrait of a person holding a skull conveyed the sitter's belief in a spiritual life after death. (http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435904)