COENRAET DECKER (1650-1685)

This allegory on the death of the brothers Johan and Cornelis de Witt, Dutch statesmen who were lynched in The Hague in 1672, has all the traditional, allegorical elements and symbols of the transience of time and of death: Father Time with scythe and hourglass, contemplating a skull, and a large pendulum. What is remarkable are the portrait engravings of the two brothers - prints within the print - and the depiction of various books, including a copy of Joost van den Vondel's play Palamedes of 1625 (itself a political allegory) and Plutarch's Lives of the noble Greeks and Romans.