"In Ictu Oculi (In the Blink of an Eye)," Juan de Valdés Leal, 1670-72.
I find this brutally macabre work endlessly fascinating. Death itself treads on a celestial sphere, and is surrounded by markers of worldly wealth and power, while snuffing out a candle. Death levels all; it doesn't care about your achievements, and it looks out at you as if warning that your turn will come.
This is viewed as Leal's finest work, and is part of a diptych; the other part shows the corpses of a knight and bishop. What's weird is that these were commissioned for a charity hospital...quite a thing to see when you go in! But in those days a hospital was likely the last stop anyway...
This still hangs at the hospital, along with a number of other works.
