The story behind this painting is almost as interesting as the painting itself. Sir William Paston and his son, Sir Robert Paston, had traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East, and returned to England with hundreds of exotic curiosities and treasures. They then commissioned an artist to paint a selection of them in their estate at Oxnead Hall.
Now on one level the painting serves as impressive evidence of their power and wealth, and yet it also has much in common with the "vanitas" art so popular at the time, which was intended to remind us how all worldly riches and achievements are as nothing in the face of our mortality. Whatever the original purpose of the painting, one can't help but reflect about what became of the family.
Robert was granted the title of the Earl of Yarmouth, which he passed on to his son, but the family soon fell into financial difficulties, and all of his children except a daughter died before him. The title lapsed, Oxnead Hall was abandoned, and the entire estate was sold off to pay their many debts. This surely included the treasures, as well as the painting of those treasures, which only resurfaced in the 1940's, with some of the colors faded, but still a powerful testament to both human greatness and weakness.
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