Luyckx’s Vanitas Pair Soars Beyond €200,000 at Kâ-Mondo's Sale

Each initially estimated between €15,000 and €20,000, the Vanitas with a Terrestrial Globe soared to €107,950, while the Vanitas with a Celestial Globe — featuring a portrait of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe — reached €111,760. Likely conceived as a pair, the two compositions display a refined interplay of baroque symbolism and intellectual iconography.

Globes, engravings, seashells, books, scientific instruments and playing cards form a visual meditation on the fragility of pleasure and the pursuit of meaning. Coral, a symbol of divine protection, appears alongside markers of a world in constant transformation — between cosmic knowledge and earthly vanity.