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Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot (ca. 1585-1657)
Allegory of transitoriness. Painted in the 1620s? Panel, 58 × 73 cm.

The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, inv.nr.NK 2589 (on loan to Frans Halsmuseum, cat.nr.469a)

Eddy de Jongh has demonstrated the ties between this painting and a print by Jacques de Gheyn II, where the old woman is herself a skeleton and the message is laid on that much more thickly: what good is your wealth when death knocks at the door?

Jacques de Gheyn was a court artist to the stadholder, Prince Maurits. Hendrick Pot, a Haarlem master of high social standing, must also have had ties to the court. In 1620 the town of Haarlem paid him 450 Flemish pounds for a monumental allegorical painting of The apotheosis of William the Silent, Maurits's father, for the Prinsenhof. In the 1630s, Pot spent a period of time at the court of King Charles I of England, which may be taken as a sign that he was in favour with the Dutch stadholder as well.

The combination of princely praise, sexual imagery and warnings of the nearness of death may seem strange at first glance, but it made sense at the court of the Calvinist generalissimo Maurits. Remember too that other painting that the town of Haarlem ordered for the Prinsenhof, where Maurits stayed on his visits to the city: A monk squeezing the breast of a nun (cat.nr. 11).

Exhib. cat. Tot lering en vermaak, nr. 52. Exhib. cat. Prijst de lijst, nr. 8.