In the 1660s, Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie redesigned the interiors of Venngarn Castle, where this painting comes from. It is a combination of words and images, an emblem. These conveyed wisdom and Christian or philosophical ideas. Several of the emblems at Venngarn deal with good political governance, as well as ideas found in neostoicism: inner peace and the acceptance of fate are achieved through virtue and submission to God.

The peacock symbolises vanity (Vanitas) and conceit. The meaning of the crescent moon with the face and hands and the Latin Sic (so) is debated. It could be a symbol of transience, linked to the vagaries of fortune, but also the opposite, absolute permanence and thus the opposite of conceit.