Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts[needs Dutch IPA] or Gysbrechts (1625/1629 – after 1675)[1] was a Flemish painter who was active in the Spanish Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden in the second half of the seventeenth century.

He specialised in trompe-l'œil still lifes, an artistic genre which uses visual tricks to give viewers the illusion that they are not looking at a painting but rather at real three-dimensional objects.

[2] His earliest known painting, the Vanitas still life with a young Moor presenting a pocket watch (at Ader Paris on 9 April 1990, lot 61) is dated 1657.

Some art historians believe that he may have been in Emperor Leopold I's service in Regensburg, even though no records to prove such relationship have yet been found.

Art historian Eva de la Fuente sees in the Perspective Chamber a symbolic representation of a "worldview with the autocratic king at the centre.

[3] After leaving Copenhagen, he is believed to have been in Stockholm, where in 1673 he painted a large letter rack commissioned by the bourgeoisie of the town.

[3] As his son Franciscus painted the same subjects in a style close to that of his father, it has sometimes been difficult to establish the authorship of certain works.

[9] His earliest known painting is the Vanitas still life with a young Moor presenting a pocket watch (at Ader (Paris) 9 April 1990, lot 61) which is dated 1657.

[11][12] The worldview behind the vanitas paintings was a Christian understanding of the world as a temporary place of fleeting joys and sorrows from which humanity could only escape through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ.

This worldview is conveyed in these still lifes through the use of stock symbols that refer to the transience of things and, in particular, the futility of earthly wealth: a skull, soap bubbles, candles, empty glasses, wilting flowers, insects, smoke, clocks, mirrors, books, hourglasses and musical instruments, various expensive or exclusive objects such as jewellery and rare shells and globes.

[13] In Trompe l'oeil with studio wall and vanitas still life (1668, Statens Museum for Kunst) Gijsbrechts presents a virtual inventory of seventeenth-century symbols of transience: the skull with the ears of corn, the hourglass, the extinguished candle, the soap bubble and artist paraphernalia.

The portraits allude to the mortality the deceased, even while glorifying him, within a spiritual and traditional vanitas iconography.

[14] In the 1660s, Gijsbrechts abandoned the pure vanitas still life paintings by integrating the vanitas motifs into increasingly complex trompe l'oeil compositions, which depict studio walls, letter racks (the notice boards of the era), board walls with hunting implements and musical instruments and "chantournés" (cut-outs).

The latter took the deception of the eye one step further, as the painted panel or canvas was cut in a shape intended to fool viewers into believing that they were standing in front of a three-dimensional object.

On the floor is another trompe l'oeil picture which leans against a leg of the easel and of which only the reverse side is visible.

The painting was displayed leaning against a wall in the entrance hall to the Royal Danish Kunstkammer thus increasing its illusionistic impact.

All kinds of objects are pinned behind the rack such as letters, newspaper advertisements, a quill pen and a pocket knife.

[18] In a pair of paintings in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Gijsbrecht demonstrated his inventiveness by combining in a novel way his trompe l'oeil techniques with the vanitas subjects for which he was known.

A celestial globe with the constellations and signs of the zodiac symbolises the world and an open drawer reveals its exotic riches.

A large tablecloth, known to have belonged to Frederik III, hangs over some of the painter's tools - a bundle of brushes, his palette knife, his painting stick and his Dutch pipe.

A self-portrait of the artist stares at the viewer with intense, shining eyes, making the painter an observer of it all.

Below, an elderly man places his hand on the shoulder of a housewife as she lights a pipe - a symbol of life passing like smoke.