Around 1640 -1708 · Dutch vanity and scholarly trompe-l'oeil

Skulls, books, instruments, jewelry and crumpled papers make Collier's vanities brilliant meditations on time, knowledge and illusion.

Edwaert Collier, also named Evert or Edward Collier, was born around 1640 in Breda. He worked in Haarlem then in Leiden, where he was registered with the guild of Saint-Luc, before settling permanently in London in the 1690s. A specialist in still life, he developed two families of images: learned vanities and trompe-l'oeil of letters, prints and objects fixed on a board. In his vanities, the skull, the hourglass, the watch, the crown, the books, musical instruments and soap bubbles remind us that beauty, power, pleasure and knowledge are fleeting. In his vanities, the skull, the hourglass, the watch, the crown, the books, the musical instruments and the soap bubbles remind us that beauty, power, pleasure and knowledge are fleeting. In his vanities, the skull, the hourglass, the watch, the crown, the books, the musical instruments and the soap bubbles remind us that beauty, power, pleasure and knowledge are fleeting. Collier opposes this moral message with an attractive virtuosity: shiny metals, folded pages, glass, velvet and strings are rendered with a precision that invites touch. In London, his compositions integrate documents and portraits linked to the English context. Died in 1708, he left a corpus scattered between museums and private collections, sometimes recorded under different spellings of his name. The "Edwaert Collier" selection notably compares Vanity with books, musical instruments and skull and Vanity with books, manuscripts and skull. His reading favors composition.

Collier makes illusion a moral lesson: the more the object seems present, the more the painting reminds us that it will disappear.