![Explore the exhibition 'Castiglione: Lost Genius' at The Queen's Gallery, Edinburgh opening November 2014.](https://cmsadmin.rct.uk/sites/default/files/lead_image_half_height/Lost%20genius%20Edinburgh%20gallery%202014%20banner.jpg)
GIOVANNI BENEDETTO CASTIGLIONE (1609-64)
Vanitas
c. 1655RCIN 903924
The globe, book and trumpet are the standard symbols of futile earthly achievement, as seen in Castiglione’s large oil drawings of a few years before (cats 58 – 59). But in those drawings the passage of time was merely hinted at: here death is explicit, as the woman and child meditate on a skull and cadaverous ghouls loom in from the right.
Cat. 73