Document: Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill, Pieter Claesz, Dutch, 1628

Still life paintings like this had a special name:  Vanitas.    They served to remind the viewer that life is short, and often contained symbolic meanings about life, love, luck, and vanity.   The Netherlands art world produced these at the highest possible level of quality, and it is possible that some of them may have made their way to New Netherland with some of the wealthier families.

Note that the glass is a roemer, a type of beer glass that was hand blown and prized by the Dutch.

Metropolitan Museum Summary:  In this still life, close observation and realistic detail operate in tension with explicit symbolism. The toppled glass, gap-toothed skull, and guttering wick of an oil lamp all serve as stark symbols of life’s brevity. Working with a limited palette of grays and browns, Claesz carefully describes the surfaces of these unsettling objects. By arranging them on a pitted stone ledge, the artist connects the picture’s space to our own, making the message all the more compelling.