An elderly man taunted by a skeleton, as he sits and ponders in a vanitas conceit. Woodcut by Tobias Stimmer, 1580.

The skeleton carries a money basket and displays an hourglass to show that time is running out, suggestive of the fleetingness of time and emptiness of possessions. It was widely believed that one should prepare for death, avoidance was futile and worldly goods useless. A pelican, with bended neck in submission completes the scene, by symbolising sacrifice and a popular attribute of charity. The attitude of the participants is in keeping with the importance placed in biblical descriptions of death, particularly I Corinthians, 16, verses 51-55, that death could come "in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye" and that death is swallowed up, "oh death where is thy sting, oh grave where is thy victory?"