Graphite, pen and brown ink, grey wash, 110 x 140 mm. Very thin framing lines in brown ink, with thicker lines outside them, but still on the same paper as the drawing. A grey line along the top, as if suggesting a different format. Laid down. Inscribed in the lower right corner, in pen and grey ink, Tideman fecit. Numbered in the lower left corner, in pen and brown ink, 169(?), over a different number. Numbered in the lower right corner 154 (struck out), and on the old mount 1981 (Sparre), in pen and brown ink. Mark of the Royal Collection (Lugt 1638).

This drawing is the model for an illustration in Gerard de Lairesse’s Het Groot Schilderboek, 1707. The print is inscribed P. Tideman del. and pag. 189. On pages 189 to 194 follows a very detailed description of the composition under the heading “Verbeeldinge van een Vanitas”.

The drawing is very close in style to one in Amsterdam, an interior with ladies taking tea. Similarities include the disposition of the figures, the gestures, and the light coming from large window openings on both sides. Writing about the present composition, Lairesse analyses these and other factors from the point of view of readability and representativity, the latter meaning a good distribution in terms of age, sex and social standing, which contributes to the universality of the theme. The children delight in the soap bubbles, the young lady admires herself in the mirror and fingers her jewellery, and the ageing man in the background tries to understand the world, pointing triumphantly to his head. The globe behind him is that of the unreachable heavens (signs of the zodiac are represented in the print and mentioned in the text, but are not present in the drawing). A kneeling young maid is busy polishing, while an old woman admires the household silver in the cupboard, rubbing her hands. All are vain occupations.

Lairesse’s description ends a section of his book called “De eigenschappen van het Burgerlyke, het welk dagelyks stof in overvloed voor Modernschilders verschaft”, that is, dealing with how bourgeois life continuously provides an abundance of subject matter for the modern painter. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 420]