The reclining youth, the artist's ideal self, wears the plumed beret seen in Castiglione’s self-portrait etching (no. 100). Creativity is embodied by a palette and a sheet of music, fertility by poultry and a rabbit; we see the trumpets and drums of Fame, a huge palm of Victory, and the wreath of Immortality. And yet weeds are growing over the sculpture and masonry, for all human achievement is subject to the ravages of time.

No. 126