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Many Flemish still-lifes refer in all their beauty to the transience of life but it was Franciscus Gijsbrechts who expressed this transience in the most explicit fashion. His Vanitas is conceived as a grandiose spectacle dealing with the vanity of the intellectual world (globe, books), of the 'vita voluptaria' (musical instruments, smoking implements) and, finally, of the transience of life (skull, hourglass). The moralistic meaning of these still-lifes might have lost some of its urgency as far as modern viewers are concerned, but the visual pleasure which they offer is an equally important aspect.
There are similarities between Franciscus Gijsbrecht and Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, both in their choice of motif and in the range of objects portrayed. But while Cornelis Norbertus quite quickly specialised into trompe l'oeil still-lifes, Franciscus painted mostly Vanitas still-lifes.
To a certain extant Franciscus painted the same accessories as Cornelis Norbertus, but typical of Franciscus are the costlier jugs and dishes, the table cloths with long fringes, the large musical instruments, draped cloths and finally the large bundles of crumpled landscape prints of drawings or unspecified papers, heavily dog-eared and overhanging the edge of a table or niche.
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