Allegory of Transience

Description

The small octagonal panel shows Chronos, the personification of Time, as an old bearded man with his most usual attribute, the scythe, and with wings. He holds a cloak marked with the numbers and the lines of the hours (as on a sundial) spread out in front of him to conceal the nakedness of his body; death in the form of a skeleton peeps out from behind it. Two designs by Johann Rudolf Huber (1668-1748) for a sundial which are close to the glass painting suggest that this panel is also his work, and that he was a glass painter as well as a painter. However, the illogical arrangement of the numbers in the panel rules out its use as a glass sundial. The main message of the glass painting is that of vanitas, the triumph of time and death over life: the inscription reads, "die Zeit get hin / har kombt der Tod / O Mensch betrachts / and ferchte Gott. / 1731." (Time goes by / death draws near / Oh man take note / and fear God).