French painter. In his time he had a high reputation as a portraitist, however today he is mainly known by his refined vanitas still-lifes in which musical instruments, music sheets and skulls play the central role in addition to other objects indicating the brevity of life.
The artist specialized in complex ‘Vanitas’ pieces of dramatic clarity. The general influence on his art is Netherlandish, and it is likely that his unsigned pictures are still classified under the Northern schools. Most of his pictures are dominated by a grisly skull surrounded by numerous other indications of the brevity of life. He was received into the French Academy in 1663 as a portraitist.
This artist was remarkably consistent in his use of motifs. Most, though not all, of his paintings are composed of conventional vanitas emblems: the skull, small viol (known in English as a kit and in French a pochette), fluted silver candlestick and musical score inscribed in French.
The painting shows a vanitas still-life with a skull, a viol and a violin bow, a pocket-watch, a musical score and other objects, all laid out on a draped table. The represented objects are often repeated in the artist’s vanity still-lifes.
French still-lifes always employed the same monotonous repertoire, without the dense liveliness of Flemish art. Symbols were often included, such as a wisp of straw, an hour glass, skull, or fly that went into a vanitas still-life. Simon Renard de Saint-Andr� might depict a butterfly on the flower, a fly on the skull, or a whole collection of funerary objects, all orchestrated in front of deep red drapes.
