LEIDEN, Netherlands — David Bailly (1584–1657) was a prominent Dutch painter of the generation before Rembrandt and Vermeer. A Calvinist, he traveled through Germany to Venice and Rome when he was young. At home in Leiden, he successfully painted portraits and still lifes, becoming fashionable, well-connected and self-confident. He married late in life and had no children. The 90 works in David Bailly: Time, Death and Vanity in the De Lakenhal Museum include monumental portraits, as well as works by some of the artist’s contemporaries. His first “Kitchen Still Life” (1616) is an impressive depiction of foodstuffs, and the portraits of models wearing beautiful Dutch collars are fine. But otherwise, Bailly’s skilful portraits of eminent Dutchmen are, to be honest, of no particular aesthetic interest. What justified going to this retrospective, besides the visit to the exquisite De Lakenhal museum, was the possibility of seeing his last known work, “Vanitas Still Life with Portrait of a Young Painter” (1651).

“Vanitas” is a showstopper. A young man holds a maulstick in one hand and a small portrait of an older man in the other hand. The portrait rests on a table alongside an assortment of works of art (copies of a drawing by Frans Hals and some Flemish sculptures), books, a pipe, jewelry and finery, and a portrait of a woman. The general idea that vanity rots things and people is familiar. But who are the man and the woman in the small paintings, and the man on the left holding one of these portraits? And what do their images collectively say about vanity? In general, we can identify Bally’s patterns; he was adept at capturing likenesses. His “Portrait of Christian Rosenkrantz” (1641) incorporates a small monochrome painted self-portrait pinned to the canvas in the upper right corner. Like a signature, it identifies the artist who made the largest portrait. But in “Vanitas”, we do not see how the meaning of these portraits come together.

“Vanitas” is on the cover of Svetlana Alpers The art of describing: Dutch art in the 17th century (1983), the best-known recent general account of art in the Netherlands. According to his radical revisionist analysis, “the artist undertakes fully, regularly and lovingly a version of [philosopher Francis] Baconian experiences….” Bailly, she says, shows in her illustration of the science of her time how representation gives us “the capacity to understand the world”. Moving from the right of “Vanitas” to the left, she says, the artist transforms nature into art, showing the stages of this activity. “Juxtaposed with the plaster, stone and metal bodies, the bony skull and the painted images, Bailly and the attendant appear like living flesh. This speculative account, quoted but rejected in this catalog, does not explain the visual oddities. The more I looked at this painting and re-read the catalog, the more perplexed I became. What is the relationship of the young man on the left with the older figure, of whom he is holding a small portrait, and the woman in the portrait next to it? Clearly, the bric-a-brac on the table is vanity. But what does that have to do with these portraits?

To make matters even more complex, a recent laboratory study of the painting (and a 19th century woodcut) reveals behind the glass vessel in the center the faint image of a woman, which appears to have been painted on. The candle to its left flashes. Because the pigments may have changed, it is unclear whether Bailly’s original work has survived. What was his relationship with the three remaining characters then? It seems that the artist, whose other works are visually simple, wanted to have a special meaning here. Why then, at the end of his career, did Bailly create this fascinating and seemingly unsolved puzzle? Nothing in the catalog, which summarizes recent research on the artist, nor anything I have seen, suggested how to answer this question – a surprising, oddly frustrating conclusion to a seemingly simple exhibition.

David Bailly: Time, Death and Vanity continues at Museum De Lakenhal (Oude Singel 32, Leiden, The Netherlands) until July 2. The exhibition was curated by Janneke van Asperen and Christiaan Vogelaar.