The Artist's Son, Louis

Four-year-old Louis van Loo leans out of an illusionistic oval window to twirl a pinwheel made out of playing cards. Commonplace playthings in the 18th century, pinwheels and playing cards were also conventional signifiers of vanitas, or mortality. The painting can thus be understood on several different levels: as an engaging portrait of a young child, as a charming genre scene of a childhood pastime, and as a meditation on the fleeting joys of youth.