Support The single, vertically grained, quarter-sawn oak plank is approx. 0.5 cm thick on the left and approx. 1.1 cm on the right. Small wooden strips at the top and bottom (approx. 0.7 cm) and on the left and right (approx. 0.5 cm) were added at a later date. The reverse is bevelled on all sides, although less so on the left. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1624. The panel could have been ready for use by 1635, but a date in or after 1641 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, thin, off-white ground does not extend over the edges of the support. It consists of white pigment particles with a tiny addition of earth pigments.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint does not extend over the edges of the support. The composition was painted quickly and efficiently from dark to light in what appear to be only one or two layers. Larger elements were reserved, while small ones, such as the playing cards and rose, were added over the background. The individual elements were underpainted in subdued browns and greys, thinly applied wet in wet and quite smoothly blended, with some indication of light and dark areas and volume. The whitish foreground was then added around the individual implements of war. Very delicate and small lines were used to delineate contours, enhance modelling and add highlights. The highlighted area of the skull on the left has fine hatching. The paint layers are smooth, with only some slight impasto in the contours and highlights.
Ige Verslype, 2022

Fair. There are small discoloured retouchings throughout. The paint surface is abraded throughout. The thick varnish is severely discoloured.

…; from Mr Maas Geesteranus, Amsterdam, fl. 50, to the museum, May 1907

Object number: SK-A-2253

The monogram ‘IB’ is found on several works that are attributed to Jan Jansz Buesem with a fair degree of certainty,⁵⁵Among them Peasant Woman and Flute Player, present whereabouts unknown; photo RKD. and it is on the basis of them that this still life was recognized as a Buesem in 2003.⁶⁶Attribution by Fred Meijer, RKD. Irina Linnik had previously proposed assigning it to Pieter van den Bosch; note RMA. He is probably also the artist of two similar paintings with implements of war that emerged on the art market in 1995 and 1998.⁷⁷Vanitas Still Life with the Skull of a Horse; sale, New York (Sotheby’s), 6 October 1995, no. 98 (as Cornelis Saftleven). A Vanitas Portrait of a Woman, signed with the ligated monogram ‘JB’; sale, London (Christie’s), 8 July 1998, no. 351 (as circle of Matthias Withoos). The woman in the background of the latter picture is undoubtedly a goddess of war or discord and not a portrait of a specific individual. That painting had previously been offered as a work by Leonaert Bramer in sale, London (Phillips), 7 December 1993, no. 254.

The main elements of the Rijksmuseum picture are a cuirass and shield leaning against a drum on which there is a plumed helmet. To the left is the top half of a horse’s skull with an arrow stuck in it. Hanging on a piece of rope is a glass sphere in which the artist’s reflection can be seen. Lying on the ground at the front are playing cards and a rose. Many of these objects feature in the other two still lifes with implements of war: the horse’s skull, the drum with the plumed helmet, the cards and the glass sphere. In addition, both have a piece of paper with the word ‘Ydel-Heijt’ (Vanity), which immediately explains the meaning of the scenes. The Rijksmuseum painting undoubtedly has the same connotation as an allusion to the transience of earthly things, the fleeting nature of life, the vagaries of fate and the menacing proximity of death in time of war.

The dendrochronology shows that the panel was most probably ready for use in or after 1641.⁸⁸See Technical notes. Both the subject and the markedly diagonal composition appear to have been inspired mainly by the still lifes with implements of war that Willem de Poorter made in 1636.⁹⁹Vanitas, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and Still Life with Weapons and Banners, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, IV, Landau/Pfalz 1989, pp. 2467-68, nos. 1653-54. However, there are differences in the iconography. De Poorter included an imperial crown and sceptre, which seem to indicate that his main aim was to highlight the impermanence of military power and glory.¹⁰¹⁰Cf. M.L. Wurfbain and I. Bergström, IJdelheid der ijdelheden: Hollandse Vanitas-voorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1970, pp. 20-21; R.B. Sonnema, The Early Dutch Vanitas Still-Life, diss. California State University, Fullerton 1980, pp. 78-79; N. Schneider, Still Life Painting in the Early Modern Period, Cologne 1994, pp. 183-84. Such regal symbols are missing in Buesem’s painting, which appears to be more about death, adversity and transience in general.

Erlend de Groot, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

E. Gemar-Koeltzsch, Holländische Stillebenmaler im 17. Jahrhundert, III, Lingen 1995, p. 699, no. 261/1 (as Monogrammist IB)

1920, p. 285, no. 1648a (as Monogrammist IB); 1976, pp. 624-25, no. A 2253 (as Monogrammist IB)

Erlend de Groot, 2022, 'attributed to Jan Jansz. Buesem, Still Life with Implements of War, c. 1635 - c. 1645', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20025753