The Alchemist

Ryckaert’s alchemist is sitting in his candle-lit study; his desk is laden with objects readily identified as symbols of Vanitas – skull, hourglass, books and manuscripts function as reminders of the transience of all earthly things. A symbol of death, the skeleton depicted in the book he is holding completes this allegorical composition. The old man’s gaze aimlessly wanders over the globe in the foreground, presumably a reminder of the fact that the whole world is subject to the universality of death.