Still Life with a Boy Blowing Soap-bubbles

The soap-bubbles, skull, hourglass, feathered cap and gourd and other still-life elements shown in this work indicate that its subject is vanitas, the emptiness and ephemeral quality of man's existence. This work differs slightly from standard vanitas images as the boy blowing soap-bubbles has been fitted with the wings of angel. This motif indicates the layering of a religious theme over the standard vanitas imagery. Thought to have been painted relatively early in Dou's painting career, during the years 1635-36, the work clearly exhibits the compositional forms of his earlier interior scenes. The realistic depiction of still-life elements floating against the dark reaches of an interior setting is typical of Dou's work. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 33)